Everything means Something: A Review of Nothing Random: Bennett Cerf and the Publishing House He Built 
​by Gayle Feldman

by Sterling Davis





    Gayle Feldman's book on Bennett Cerf reads almost like a Tom Stoppard play. Feldman posits a fascinating portrait of Bennett Cerf. He is something of a grand, rococo character. Even something of a Gatsby.

    If Jung's vision of synchronicity is true, Bennett Cerf was the most modern man in history. Feldman's prose style is excellent. And her forthright dedication to accurate historiography and biographical panache will appeal to all readers, even specialists. One should read this book. There is a sort of bone wisdom in her prose that I found exceedingly well-crafted. Aside from the very good narrative, each time I closed this volume, in my mind's eye, I couldn't escape the almost mechanistic concatenation of events: characterological; sociological; attitudinal, that led to the formation of this otherworldly playboy. He was, in some ways, wrecked and deified by success, to borrow an apothegm from Freud.

    In life, everything is philosophical. Every choice matters. We have free will until we don't. Everything means something.


Sterling Davis is the Executive Editor of Poetries in English Magazine.


​​​​SHARE - Issue: 1.8 / April 2026