THE RIGHT TIME

In this autobiography the popular and garrulous raconteur has set down a turbulent life which has heretofore been exploited before in many volksy books, articles and musings in the Carolina Israelite. Golden's Lower East Side years will be as familiar and sunnily comfortable as an aging ottoman, but brand new is the account of events leading up to his conviction for mail fraud in 1928, for which he spent over three years in the Atlanta penitentiary. Golden has publicly mentioned his unhappy past before, but the part played by the crusading prohibitionist Bishop Cannon will intrigue and jog the memories of crash-year newshounds. Since the good Bishop had diddled (however innocently) in Golden's (then Goldhurst) ""Bucketing"" stock shop, Cannon's political foes (mainly Byrd of Virginia) were able to make hay. The jail term (Golden never really questions its justice) in addition to causing (here understated) obvious anguish, was also probably responsible for the breakup of Golden's marriage to a lively Irish-Catholic girl whom he still loves and admires. Golden's fresh start in the South after New York newspaper work, the founding of the Israelite, his involvement in the civil rights struggle, absentee fatherhood (the Goldens had four sons), fame and Reader's Digest sanctity are tales more easily told. Never modest about high level friendships, Golden is hard put to it to step outside his genial image but the self-exposure that does slip through is newsworthy.