The Kiss by Joseph Goodson
Joseph Goodson’s midcentury-set novel The Kiss opens with protagonist Joseph Gordon on his way to Rutgers, where he has transferred from Penn State for a practical romantic reason: Rutgers is closer to Smith College, where his long-term girlfriend, Celeste, is enrolled. On paper, Joseph has a future waiting for him. Celeste loves him. Her father, Jerry Brown, owns the glamorous “41” Club in New York and has helped smooth Joseph’s transfer. If Joseph stays on course, marriage, restaurant connections and social polish could be his.
But Goodson is more interested in the moment when Joseph realizes that a comfortable future is not necessarily his future. That realization begins with the kiss of the title. At Sally’s, a Rutgers hangout, Joseph sees Kate, a girl he has noticed on campus. She kisses him, and the moment feels unlike anything he has known before — intimate, startling and almost wordless in its certainty. Then Kate disappears.
Her absence does not turn The Kiss into a mystery novel, though the question of what happened to her lingers for years. Instead, that kiss becomes a private marker for Joseph, a glimpse of something he is not yet mature enough to hold. Before that can ever happen, he has a great deal of living to do.
Many Women, Many Loves
That living takes him through Rutgers, Pete’s Gym, Gabby Evers’ kitchen, the “41” Club, Pratt, New York apartments and East Hampton beach houses. Joseph breaks with Celeste, changes his major to civil engineering and begins pursuing architecture. He takes up boxing not because he is naturally tough, but because he wants discipline, courage and a physical way to confront fear.
The most important influence, however, comes from the women who enter his life at each stage. Gabby Evers first appears as a tutor recommended by Dean of Men Ed Draper. Joseph expects a teenage math prodigy and instead meets a beautiful, older model with a formidable mind and a complicated past. Gabby helps him catch up in calculus, but her real gift is helping him believe that his mind can open, that he’s capable of more than he knows. The “WHAM” he experiences with math becomes one of the book’s clearest metaphors for growth.
Gabby also teaches him tenderness, honesty and the value of a friendship that can survive changing forms. Suki, the young Japanese woman Gabby brings into their household, complicates that lesson further, asking Joseph to understand affection without possession. Eileen Kelly, the brilliant pre-med student with unforgettable green eyes, seems for a time like Joseph’s future wife. But Eileen’s drinking problems force the novel into harder territory. Joseph learns that love may be real and still not be enough.
Later, Rita, his Pratt roommate, gives him one of the book’s healthiest partnerships. They study, run, live together and care for each other while understanding that their time together may have an ending built into it. Marti Mason draws him into a different kind of love altogether — one that includes grief, children, wealth, a beach house and the difficult pull of a ready-made family. With Marti, Joseph learns that being needed can be powerful, but also consuming.
A Warm Coming-of-Age Novel
Goodson tells all of this in a warm, conversational style that feels closer to a life remembered than to a tightly engineered plot. The book moves episodically, lingering over meals, drinks, dances, workouts and long conversations. Characters talk openly about love, trauma, fear, healing and trust. That emotional directness gives the novel a sincere quality. It is not coy or ironic; it wears its heart on its sleeve.
The recurring details — Sally’s cheeseburgers, bourbon on the rocks, bagels and smoked salmon, caviar, boxing gloves, architecture books, beach walks — give the novel its texture. Joseph’s world feels built out of people and places that matter to him.
By the time Joseph finally lands in the relationship that will endure, the romance feels earned, like the closing of a long circle. Joseph has been shaped by loss, ambition, friendship, desire, responsibility and several kinds of love. He has grown and matured.
The Kiss is a generous, nostalgic novel about the people who pass through our lives, the love they leave behind and the long work of becoming ready for the one who stays.
About Joseph Goodson
Joseph Goodson has had a prolific and varied career as both a writer and an entertainment industry insider. He began his career in New York City as the manager of the illustrious 21 Club for 13 years from 1955 to 1968. During his time as manager, he met and worked with top celebrities of the day who frequented 21. As his career progressed, he took his chance in the entertainment industry, moving to Hollywood in the late 1960s. There, he became an associate producer for the popular TV sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. Goodson was a television writer, producer, director and studio executive for many other sitcoms during this period, including The Love Boat and Bewitched, among others. He served as a studio executive at Columbia-MGM for 10 years. He also served as Director of New Comedy Development at Screen Gems for three years. As a past member of the Writers Guild and Directors Guild, this is Goodson’s first novel. He resides in Riverside, CA, with his wife, Susan, who is also a published author.
