Joseph Mitchell’s “Joe Gould’s Secret” is a profile novel that follows the life and career of an everyday man. Mitchell is described as one who is “not easily bored,” intrigued by the simple pleasures in life such as old buildings, churches, hotels, and restaurants to name a few. These traits make it sensible that he would study a character like Gould who is a bit odd yet fascinating. Mitchell’s work is described by Harold Ross as “highlife-lowlife”  because it focus on the elite city that is New York and the “lowlife” that is a person who is toothless, needs money from others to survive,  and wears “discarded clothes of a man several inches taller and wider.” A highlife profile is one of achievements and success while a lowlife profile is one of mistakes and experiences. Gould’s story tells the world about the beauties of New York with all the “highs and lows,” good and bad. Although the novel was a profile on Gould, it too is a story about Mitchell and provides readers with facts about both people and their relationship. Both men are smart, both are writers, both fabricate the truth, and ironically have the same name. Mitchell made things up in his writing, mixing fact and fiction just as Gould went his whole life speaking about the amazing “Oral History of Our Time” that seemingly never existed other than in his mind. Gould ultimately lives the highlife because every knows him, donates to his fund, or even buys him a drink but he lives the lowlife too in that he needs the support.