Holding onto Nothing

Book excerpt: HOLDING ONTO NOTHING is Gordon Bishop's first book, begun when he was 19 at the Iroquois Hotel in Manhattan and completed when he was 20 and working as a copywriter for a catalog house in Passaic, New Jersey. In 1959, Mr. Bishop walked into THE HERALD-NEWS, Passaic, and got a job as a reporter. Soon after, he was writing his own general-interest column and winning awards: The New Jersey Press Association's Award for "Best Column" in 1965 and the NJPA's Award for "Best Reporting Against Deadlilne" in 1966. A graduate of Rutgers University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Mr. Bishop, as a student, became a good friend of his teacher, Paterson Poet Louis Ginsberg, father of the famous avant-garde poet Allen Ginsberg. As a result of their decade-long friendship, Mr. Bishop wrote two books on the Ginsbergs, the first a collection of essays (with pictures) entitled THE FIVE WORLDS OF ALLEN GINSBERG, and a biography, THE GINSBERGS: A FAMILY OF POETS, both of which are scheduled for publication later this year. Mr. Bishop also co-authored a three-act play, THE PURPLE CANARY, dealing with corruption in public school systems and which was presented at the off-Broadway Midway Theater in Manhattan in 1963.