Jerzy Kosinski: A Biography

by James Park Sloan, Jerzy Kosiński

A biography of the late novelist discusses his wartime childhood in Poland, his strange and active sex life, his reputation as a writer, and his suspected ties to the CIA and accusations of plagiarism against him. Reprint.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Literature

512 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kosinski : the biggest fakir of all, at last, stripped bare. His "legend" was pushed by NYTs fake news editors, the infamous duo - Rosenthal & Gelb - of the period. They also did same w the Kitty Genovese murder. And you wonder why many good people don't trust the media?? We know "The Painted Bird," which gave GR readers prickly heat, came from a (sick) imagination and was written by a series of assistants. When The Village Voice (NY) questioned its authenticity, NYT engineered a smear campaign against the weekly and its editors. Jerzy himself was a painted bird. He couldnt fly.

[Julie H. Ernstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This biography tracks the train-wreck of a life of Jerzy Kosinski. It documents Kosinski's life and unpacks his fraudulent claims of being a Holocaust survivior and outlines the intersection of Kosinski's personal life and increasingly unsuccessful writing, which culminated in Kosinski's 1991 suicide. For those of us who've read Kosinski's other works--and thought him to be someone he most definitely was not--this was a fascinating read and indictment of ourselves as naive and ready consumers of survivors' tales.

[Jt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never read nor heard of a Jerzy Kosinski, even though i was told he was popular in his time, so i didn't really care to read about who he was. But given the fact that the teacher i most admired in my years of being officially taught in the "higher" education system of American Universities was the teacher who wrote this book--i took the time to read it long after i was just a student. And i can truly say, not only as a student of literature, but as a citizen of this world--as Socrates would proclaim he was--I enjoyed it. And I found it remarkable for what it tries to display, an examination of a most complicated form of being which regarded itself as an "author" of his world.

Imagine being thrown to the streets at the age of five from--and by--the protected realm of your "loving" family. Imagine witnessing the apprehension of fascism as it was by those who were for it, and those who only went with it to remain alive. Imagine yourself running. Imagine no time for a book that could explain why it is so...

Did Jerzy Kosinski lie about his life, when he was writing a fiction about it? Maybe he understood that any great tragedy had to include within it the death of its progenitor. Maybe those who wanted to prosecute him for how his ego--so proclaimed as it was in his books--was not who he was, knew what they had to do to react like this against him. Perhaps it was because of his insistence of what he could do--like when he showed off to his college roommate that he could take a brush and rub it vigorously against his erect and throbbing penis--that he didn't really achieve what he wanted to do in his make-believe world. How many among us have gone through surviving fascism at its peak and then found ourselves betraying a socialism that we wanted so much to believe in in the first place? Could we have become the sensual and enigmatic figure Kosinski was to his older, wealthy wife? Could we have entertained the "upper" class of the crust of what was known back then as the New York intelligentsia? Could we have fooled the young college students--or there equivalent "for-hires"--in believing that what they were translating was a "literature" and not what was only being told to them, as they heard it and reported it?

These, and more questions to follow, are presented in this book.

[False · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never could stand Kosinski as a person or a writer. Ultimately I was proven right when his life and work was exposed as a sham. Why read this then? Curiosity as to why someone would turn their life and their career into a lie. Well written by James Park Sloan.

[Carolyn]

Slanted. He knew JK and was envious it would seem.

[Seamus Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read the first 200 pages and then glossed the rest.

[Yousseif Abdellatif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, I came to Jerzy Kosinski: A Biography for the big ideas and stayed for the little stories. James Park Sloan uses small, human moments to make huge arguments feel real. A few examples are stretched thin. Good for people who like theory with a pulse, skip if you want only hard numbers.

[Rowyda Amin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Park Sloan's biography of Kosinski is a fascinating cautionary tale of literary social climbing and the perils of building a reputation on a foundation of lies.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insane!