Jesus Christ Kinski

by Benjamin Myers

A bold and brilliant short work by the author of the Goldsmiths Prize-winning Cuddy

'Myers' intense, double-edged fiction reminds us again of how exciting the novel can be' Observer
'Makes most contemporary fiction look bloodless by comparison' Daily Mail
'Like nothing else you'll read this year' Jan Carson
'Highly original, bold, inventive … A stunning rendering' independent.co.uk
'A hair-raising performance' Kit Fan
'Brilliant, strange and electrifying' Daily Telegraph

November, 1971. Berlin, Germany. Opening night.

Klaus Kinski, Germany's most controversial actor, steps into the spotlight to a crowd of thousands.

After years of making movies abroad, he has returned to the stage for a much-publicized one-man performance about Jesus Christ. As the crowd turn on him and violence is threatened, it is also very nearly his last. After this week, he will never perform on stage again.

Exactly fifty years later, a hypochondriac writer, housebound by winter snowstorms, becomes fixated with video footage of Kinski at his most manic.

In this forensic analysis, he strays into the darker corners of modern culture, and finally begins to understand the compulsive urge that drives artists to the edge of sanity in their pursuit of perfection.

Jesus Christ Kinski is a novel about a film about a performance about Jesus. It is a daring act of literary ventriloquism, a meditation on censorship, creativity, loneliness – and just how far our tolerance is tested by bad people who make great art.

Praise for Benjamin Myers
'One of our finest, and most deftly imaginative, writers' i news
'Radical and gorgeous' Max Porter
'A writer of extraordinary and incandescent talent' Alex Preston

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook, Germany, Contemporary, British Literature, Novels

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2025

About the author

Benjamin Myers was born in Durham, UK, in 1976.

He is an award-winning author and journalist whose recent novel Cuddy (2023) won the Goldsmiths Prize.

His first short story collection, Male Tears, was published by Bloomsbury in 2021.

His novel The Offing was published by Bloomsbury in 2019 and is a best-seller in Germany. It was serialised by Radio 4's Book At Bedtime and Radio 2 Book club choice. It is being developed for stage and has been optioned for film.

The non-fiction book Under The Rock, was shortlisted for The Portico Prize For Literature in 2020.

Recipient of the Roger Deakin Award and first published by Bluemoose Books, Myers' novel The Gallows Pole was published to acclaim in 2017 and was winner of the Walter Scott Prize 2018 - the world's largest prize for historical fiction. It has been published in the US by Third Man Books and in 2023 was adapted by director Shane Meadows for the BBC/A24.

The Gallows Pole was re-issued by Bloomsbury, alongside previous titles Beastings and Pig Iron.

Several of Myers' novels have been released as audiobooks, read by actor Ralph Ineson.

Turning Blue (2016) was described as a "folk crime" novel, and praised by writers including Val McDermid. A sequel These Darkening Days followed in 2017.

His novel Beastings (2014) won the Portico Prize For Literature, was the recipient of the Northern Writers’ Award and longlisted for a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award 2015. Widely acclaimed, it featured on several end of year lists, and was chosen by Robert Macfarlane in The Big Issue as one of his books of 2014.

Pig Iron (2012) was the winner of the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize and runner-up in The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize. A controversial combination of biography and novel, Richard (2010) was a bestseller and chosen as a Sunday Times book of the year.

Myers’ short story ‘The Folk Song Singer’ was awarded the Tom-Gallon Prize in 2014 by the Society Of Authors and published by Galley Beggar Press. His short stories and poetry have appeared in dozens of anthologies.

As a journalist he has written about the arts and nature for publications including New Statesman, The Guardian, The Spectator, NME, Mojo, Time Out, New Scientist, Caught By The River, The Morning Star, Vice, The Quietus, Melody Maker and numerous others.

He currently lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire, UK.

Reviews

[Meike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Make no mistake: This is not a book about German actor Klaus Kinski. This is a book about Benjamin Myers in which Kinski serves as a projection surface. In it, we get a (fictionalized) Myers who wrote a novel that was a surprise success in its German translation (The Offing / Offene See) and thus earned him a very welcome amount of money, but the author himself judges his work as "twee" and easily digestible (I haven't read it), so now he claims to daringly venture into commercial suicide in order to prove his artistic guts: He writes about "cancelled" Kinski, which is ... a daring feat?! Nope, this premise is of course complete nonsense: Kinski was never cancelled, he is widely perceived as a crazy, controversial genius, and to be fascinated by Kinski does not exactly exhibit any shock factor in Germany, as the text insinuates: Who isn't fascinated by Kinski, his antics and his talent? And that's the problem of the text: It is in itself a performance in which a writer, apparently rattled by his own success, poses as an edgy, fearless artist by trying to establish the false claim that writing about Kinski, one of the greatest and best known German actors of the 20th century, somehow amounts to ballsy outsider art. What?!

This is particularly tragic because the quality of Myers's writing is stellar: In the first part of his book, he takes us inside the mind of Kinski during his performance of Jesus Christus Erlöser (Erlöser = Redeemer), a public recitation in the form of a declamatio staged in Berlin in 1971. Kinski wrote the text himself, a very serious work based on the New Testament - but the show was a desaster, as the audience kept heckling, interrupting and provoking him, pushing him to lose his temper and show the scandalous Kinski, the enfant terrible. And Kinski fell into the trap. The outrage was so massive that the whole tour had to be stopped and the organizer went bankrupt. By now, some critics have pointed out that the audience never gave Kinski a chance, and pondered what the inicient said about the political climate at the time. If you really want to punish yourself, you can see clips of the event on YouTube, but it is painful to watch. But Kinski wasn't cancelled after that, as Myers maintains; in fact, some of his biggest works like "Fitzcarraldo" came afterwards, the guy continued to be immensely relevant and taken seriously as an artist in Germany.

But was Klaus Kinski a violent tyrant and probably also a sex offender? Oh yes, but we all know whether this gets a rich white guy cancelled. When Kinski was young, he was committed to a psychiatric facility after trying to kill himself, and it seems like his anger management issues and his extreme demand for attention were at least partly due to mental health problems. To be clear though: This does not excuse his aggressive behavior towards the people around him, and there are also accusations of sexual violence (not only, as Myers mentions, by his daughter Pola in Kindermund, but also in hints by his daughter Nastassja who has also stated that she's glad he's dead, as well as by director Werner Herzog in Eroberung des Nutzlosen where he reveals what Kinski told him, plus by Kinksi himself, in Ich bin so wild nach deinem Erdbeermund: Erinnerungen, which, to be fair, seems to be a seriouly fictionalized account).

Still, when Myers imagines himself in the shoes of Kinski during the controversial "Jesus Christus Erlöser" performance, it's spectacularly crafted: The oscillating mind, intrusive thoughts ("you"), and out-of-body experiences, the flashbacks alluding to his strained relationship with Werner Herzog, his three-day-stint at the Wittenau sanatorium (which also features in Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F.), him becoming a soldier, his storied career in public recitation, how he feels connected to Jesus, his disdian for the audience. ("They want to see you weep, they want you broken.") etc. pp. Nothing new about Kinski here, but great writing.

But then, the part called "Intermission" follows when the fictionalized Myers chimes in, explaining why in the post-Brexit climate of 2021, he decided to write abut Kinski without much research - and Myers is not kidding when he says that he only spent two nights in Germany, doesn't speak the language, only did some cursory reading to get a hunch of German culture and is overall far from an expert. He writes: "Devoting a significant portion of one's life to attempting to transcribe the innermost thoughts of a widely disliked - some might even say despised - figure is usually a short cut to poverty (at best) or ostracisation amongst one's peers (at worst)." This love fest for one's own poetic balls and artistic integrity is unfounded: Kinski is one of the highly problematic white men celebrated for their art whose criminal and violent endeavours are still largely excused as quirks. To be intrigued by Kinski is not exactly unusual in Germany, contrary to what the text tries to maintain (and one could start the very worthwhile Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma discussion here, but this review is already too long).

What offends German sensibilities are the gratuitous Nazi comparisons though: "Defaming Kinski's character felt akin to defaming a Nazi commander". What the actual fuck, this is so obviously stupid. When Kinski rages, he of course reminds the fictionalized author of Adolf Hitler. Hitler had a very specific enunciation, and Kinski sounds nothing like him, he also moves nothing like him, this is just lazy "man rages in German = Nazi" BS. You feel like all of this isn't stupid enough yet? Okay, how about this: "But didn't Kinski, the writer thought, display the same unhinged and narcissistic tendencies as a man who might invade a country and mercilessly murder its most vulnerable and marginalised citizens? If one saw a photograph of him as a young man wearing an SS uniform, would one really be surprised?" Two things here: Being a mentally unstable asshole of an actor is not the same as committing the Holocaust, and those Nazi comparisons do nothing but take away from the vastness of their crimes by putting them in random relation. Then, you will not find a picture of teenage Kinski in a SS uniform, because he was drafted to the Wehrmacht in 1944. Another teenager from Kinski's city of birth Gdansk was drafted into the elite Waffen-SS in 1944 though: Internationally beloved literary icon Günter Grass - a man just as canceled as Kinski himself. One could start a very worthwhile Nazi soldier / Nobel Prize / celebrated actor discussion here, but again, this review is already too long.

Overall, I read this as a text by an obviously extremely talented writer, who for some reason seems to feel like lackluster research, lazy Nazi nonsense and an invented provocation is the punk rock he needs after making too much money. I don't think good writers can make too much money. I want good writers to make insane amounts of money, and then write good novels which aren't rooted in dubious self-involved struggles with self-image.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

j : Very well. There have been rumours that this performance is nothing more than provocation and therefore has the potential to cause disruption and disorder.
kk : Hopefully.

[j a journalist, and kk Klaus Kinski]

Jesus Christ Kinski is the latest novel from the brilliantly versatile Ben Myers, winner of the Goldsmiths Prize (for Cuddy), the Gordon Burn Prize (for Pig Iron) and the Walter Scott Prize (for The Gallows Pole), among other honours, and this has to be a strong contender for repeat honours for the first two prizes.

This is both a meta-fictional novel, and an attempt to channel the inner voice of the actor Klaus Kinski, an audacious choice of subject, particularly in the light of revelations post his death, that raises questions of literary censorship and the separation of one’s appreciation of an artist’s life and work, particularly difficult to separate in Kinski’s case when his misanthropic persona was key to his art.

The novel centres on a stage performance given by Kinski at the Deutschlandhalle, West Berlin, on 22 November 1971. He performed - or rather attempted to perform - a self-written monologue “Jesus Christus Erlöser.”

However, almost from the start he was heckled by the audience, leading Kinski to react furiously and storm off the stage several times before finally completing the performance to a much diminished private audience.

His first attempt can be seen here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APTn9... - and I would recommend watching it alongside the novel. For those of greater stamina the whole “performance” can be seen here - https://youtu.be/HUHEbTLJQ2Q

The novel is told in two intertwined sections. The first, told in the second person, places us in Kinski’s thoughts, including transcriptions of the English translation of the performance, which are taken from the videos linked above.

The following quote is the point at which the first attempt disintegrated as the actor angrily invites a heckler on stage who, rather bravely, complies:

You beckon with a finger, say, Come up here.
(An earnest Christian enters stage left and takes the mic from Kinski.)
I’m no great speaker, and maybe some of you are looking for Christ. But I don’t think this is him. As far as I know Jesus Christ was patient. If people contradicted him, he tried to convince them. He didn’t say ‘Shut up!’
(He hands mic back, exits stage left. Kinski continues, shouting at full volume, facing the wings.)
No! He didn’t say ‘Shut up!’ He took a whip and bashed them in the face! That’s what he did! You stupid pig!
(The crowd heckles, whistles, boos.)
(Kinski turns to audience.)
And that can happen to you, too!
(more heckling)
There are two possibilities. Either those of you who aren’t part of that riff-raff throw the others out, or else you spent your money for nothing!
(Kinski throws down mic, storms off stage and down steps, stumbles, disappears behind the green curtain with a theatrical flourish.)
(Stage lights go down.)

Alongside the events, transcripts and also photographic images of the performance, the Kinski character also revels in his own self-assessed genius (here Myers has drawn on Kinski’s vainglorious and outlandish autobiography) and Bernhardian rants against the philistines with who he works, notably his agent Gino de Stefani and the director Werner Herzog.

The second section is auto-fictional, and tells, in the third person, how “the writer” (ie Myers) came to write the book, which he began in the January 2021 lockdown, while he was supposed to be researching and writing the book that would become Cuddy, and feeling more financially secure after the success, in German translation, of The Offing.

He was not so self-absorbed as to not recognise that Kinski was less relevant today than at any time in the century or so since he was born. Nor could he overlook the fact that allegations of sexual abuse made by his eldest daughter Pola meant that he was also widely reviled, especially in Germany, where he had, since his earliest theatrical and cinematic roles in the late 1940s and early 1950s, been a divisive and often derided figure due to his angry temperament, rampant egotism and depraved personality.
…
Devoting a significant portion of one’s life to attempting to transcribe the innermost thoughts of a widely disliked–some might even say despised–figure is usually a short cut to poverty (at best) or ostracisation amongst one’s peers (at worst). Or insanity (at even more worse).

Yet the writer had enjoyed some good luck of late. After twenty years of putting his words out into the world to decent reviews and aggressively modest sales, his most recent novel, a relatively gentle affair (harsh critics might call it twee) which he had written primarily as an antidote to his ongoing anxiety over the state of things, and with no publishing deal in place, had, against the odds, unexpectedly found a home–and gone on to become a bestseller–in Germany.

This section also allows Myers to explore the writer’s artistic and socio-economic challenges and the impact of the pandemic (both isolating and yet anxiety reducing). I think this should be taken as auto-fiction rather than auto-biography and notably the writer in the novel appears to endure (enjoy?) lockdown alone, whereas I assume Myers spent it with his wife, the writer Adelle Stripe.

As the writer comments, the contents of Kinski’s monologue were, of themselves, somewhat trite. The provocation of and interactions with the audience are - although Kinski’s anger at their inability to listen in reverent silence appears to be genuine - what makes this a compelling performance:

This didn’t excuse the fact that the content–the message–of Jesus Christ Redeemer was both tedious and unnecessary. Kinski was saying that Jesus was someone who lived amongst society’s most marginalised, and was not the blonde-haired blue-eyed boy of a thousand busts, paintings and effigies, but someone of simple virtues, whose associates were prostitutes, criminals and the dispossessed.

No Sherlock shit, muttered the writer with a smile at the wordplay that he took pride in having invented. Hadn’t the great book said that all along? Did the citizens of a Berlin reborn really need a ranting lunatic in bellbottoms to reassert this?

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well that was a shock to the system.

I am pretty sure that this one will divide opinion. I certainly wasn't sure what to make of it in the beginning. Just when I think Benjamin Myers cannot surprise me one more time, he does.

If you are expecting The Offing or Rare Singles then you'll definitely be surprised. Jesus Christ Kinski gives us more of the raw work such as Pig Iron or Beastings but with the added (recent) historical part of the final stage appearance by Klaus Kinski in Berlin of Jesus Christ Saviour.

This short novel is divided into two timelines - that of the actual performance (1971) along with an internal monologue and haranguing the crowd etc by Kinski juxtaposed with the fictional Myers sitting in his office, in 2020, writing this book after being surprised by the success of The Offing (especially in Germany apparently).

The intensity of the Kinski monologue certainly grabs you by the throat and the writer section is a welcome relief. I did begin to watch the YouTube film of Kinski in Berlin but the book called me back. I plan to watch it then re-read the book.

I think I say this every time I read the latest Ben Myers but he does continually surprise. He's not a writer whose style I could describe to anyone because he changes from book to book. So far I've yet to find one that hasn't delighted/intrigued/challenged/shocked.

I'd definitely recommend this and I look forward to whatever comes next. I know it will not be more of the same.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the advance review copy. Very much appreciated.

[Tom Mooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an act of obsession. An absurd undertaking. An act of self sabotage.

It is also as exciting and memorable as anything I've read all year.

Benjamin Myers again refuses to sit still, flexing his writerly muscles with this anti-commercial novel about the wild life and manic stage presence of Klaus Kinski, a work that must have his agent and his publishers sweating. Part novel, part memoir, it conforms to no script ever written, furrowing its own path through the life of this objectively awful, undeniably brilliant man.

A wild ride that might well earn Myers a second Goldsmiths Prize in three years. Against the odds, it's one of the books of 2025.

[Pedro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, I really enjoyed my introduction to English author Benjamin Myers. Strong writing, an original concept, and a pair of big balls — bravo.

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s time to un-cancel Kinski and bring him back for a series of Netflix specials!

[Andy Weston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a fan of Myers and have read all of his novels. Within them, there is a variety in genres he addresses and in his style, but this is something completely different.

Klaus Kinski is not an obvious choice for a philosophical study the future of the human race; it seems he was an angry man, who set himself apart as a rebel and nonconformist, and made unrealistic demands of those around him.

On one night in 1971, on a Berlin stage, he presented a furious one-man show about Jesus Christ. It collapsed into anarchy, as Kinski harangued the audience, they called ‘fascist’ heckles back at him. It was to be his last performance on the German stage, but one that fascinated the author when he came across it in the Covid lockdown. Here, he recreates that performance wonderfully well.

It’s a book of two parts though, as in two intermissions from the action on stage, Myers describes exactly how his attention was caught by Kinski, and something of the actor’s background. He doesn’t sympathise with Kinski, rather tries to explain his own investigation into what motivated him.
The Kinski sections are magnificently written, a brilliant rendering of the intense, almost insane and yet creative obsession of a genius and at the same time obstreperous, fractious and almost impossible to love.

Here’s a clip..

These youths. Look at them.
These useless, callow youths.
These worthless, bearded brave-boy Berlin babies barely born when the first bombs fell upon Dresden. With their beads and their imported beedi cigarettes and their claims to originality or liberalism or any other
-ism.
They have not suffered like you have suffered, nor screamed as you have screamed. Never understood that life is hate and war and little else.
Yet still they consider it their birthright to heckle Kinski.
To rattle Kinski.
To declaim the special one, the number one.
Upstage the master!
Is it not the case that their mothers are whores and their fathers are cowards, and that when whores and cowards breed their offspring are deformed, defective - subhuman, even?
Yes. These cross-legged pieces of shit who cower in the shadows; they will never know napalm. Never need to drink milk straight from the udder, or sleep weeping in frozen mud. Never sucked on carrots pulled from the soil.
Hate and war.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is like an onion.
It's quite unpalatable raw and can give you indigestion. You can hide it in a curry but you'll not get rid of the taste of it in your mouth.

[Laura Garcia Moreno · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 I have read it cover to cover in a state of awe but the writer’s sections made me cringe a bit and even if writing sometimes is about shame it took away from my experience.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The new book by Benjamin Myers is a really interesting blend of fictionalized biography/reportage and fictionalized memoir.
Using the final stage performance of notoriously confrontational German actor, Klaus Kinski, as a focal point, Myers writes of his experience of isolation during lockdown and his near-obsessive focus on completing his book about the troubled star of Aguirre, Wrath of
God and Fitzcarraldo
The book offers a fascinating insight into the precarious existence of even the most established of writers whilst depicting the behaviour of Kinski in a shocking, but unsurprising way.
A very thought-provoking exploration of both a troubled and controversial actor and the impact of enforced winter isolation.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Klaus Kinski in Disco Elysium, with a sort of follow-up to (the fantastic) Under the Rock in the middle.

[Andy Crowder · Rating 4 out of 5]

The new stuff from your boy Benny Myers is proper weird and proper great. Immediately watching videos of Klaus Kinski on YouTube.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever read where the author goes creatively off-piste to deliver an engrossing and surprising book. Well played Mr Myers.

[Alex Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

10, perfect.

"I am a fucking genius, you pieces of shit!"

This novel is a work of dangerous obsession, a high-wire act of impersonation that is funny and terrifying in equal measure. The humour is blacker than black, the formal invention constantly entertaining. Myers' representation of Kinski's voice is enthralling, capturing manic psychosis in a thrilling but disconcerting manner. The intermissions in the voice of The Writer are amusing and self-deprecating, with the ethics of the project discussed in a postmodern manner. Despite the breadth of content here, I inhaled this novel.

TL;DR: Benjamin Myers is the first author with three novels in the Perfect shelf.

[Matthew Yeldon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinski was and still is akin to a morbid curiosity, an intriguing horror of a human being. In 2025, he’d be a hero to many just for being so openly flagrant. That’s the nature of the world we live in. For me he’s a mystery, a ball of barbed wire to be untangled, so I knew I had to read this. And for the most part, the book is entertaining; I genuinely admire Myers’s deep dive. The author uses an array of styles to entertain, even taking on Kinski’s voice for a significant portion of the text. But despite the creativity and his obvious talent, Myers doesn’t give us a story to latch onto, to make his Covid project memorable. I wanted more.

[Conor Dooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chapeau. I always love a strange passion project and this was a particularly fun trip. Big echoes of 1923: The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession which I read earlier this year. A similar story of a covid fixation over a piece of media, going down the rabbit hole, and creating something unique and fascinating. Since I know Ben often reads these reviews I hope he will spot this one, and maybe him and Ned Boulting will share a pint to discuss their shared experiences.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jesus Christ indeed! Ben Myers clearly had a different Covid lockdown experience to the rest of us. As innovative and challenging as always. Thanks to one of the Associate Producers for the proof.

[Francis Pellow · Rating 5 out of 5]

really intense and cleverly structured quick read. ambitious but brilliant.

[Ana Pau De la Borbolla]

I found this book actually very funny. Intrigued to read more from this author

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The look on his agent's face when he told her that he was writing a book that was neither novel, biography nor memoir.
 
And, furthermore, the fact that said book was to be about the dead German actor Klaus Kinski, but was also, increasingly, becoming about the writer himself, even though his life was entirely comprised of writing, walking, and looking at sleet and bird feeders.

And who wanted to read that?

 
Ben Myers is a serial award winning author: the inaugural years of the Gordon Burn Prize (my least favourite of the three prizes as subsequent longlists have been slightly uneven) with “Pig Iron”; the Northern writing Portico Prize with “Beastings”; the historical fiction Walter Scott Prize with “The Gallows Pole” (a rather brutal tale of coiners which I was I and my fellow judges had previously longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize and which recently was televised) and most recently the experimental fiction Goldsmith Prize and the historical fiction (with a sense of place) Winston Graham Prize with the brilliant (and previously shortlisted for my Barker Prize after its inexplicable Booker omission) multi-generational tale of St Cuthbert and Durham Cathedral – “Cuddy”.
 
This his latest novel is very much a departure from his usual writing – written during lockdown while he was both trying to write “Cuddy” and also in a rare moment of success due to “The Offing” which while not winning prizes (or even gaining much hardcore literary or critical appreciation due to its rather gentle nature) gained him commercial success – especially and unexpectedly in German translation.
 
During this time – Myers found himself drawn to the charismatic and controversial figure of Klaus Kinski – an often notorious in life (and post-death now largely disgraced and cancelled due to serious revelations from his family) actor; in particular to a bizarre episode where Kinski effectively killed his stage career and his reputation in his home country of Germany, by attempting a stage performance of a self-penned monologue “Jesus Christus Erloser”, in which Kinski set out to portray the real-life Jesus (correctly it has to be said) as himself a provocative character who surrounded himself with the marginalised in society.  Perhaps as much due to Kinski’s own reputation his performance was ruined by heckling. 
 
The performance itself – including the audience interventions which only prompted Kinski to up his ranting leading to further heckling -can be viewed on You Tube; and the first part of the novel is told from Kinski’s viewpoint following closely to the actual events (albeit threaded through with Kinski’s mental rants against both his agent and the filmmaker Herzog), told in a fragmentary stream of consciousness and illustrated with stills from the You Tube.
 
Then the book breaks into a metafictional/autofictional section – as “the author” (who in almost all respects apart from the apparent absence of his partner Adelle Stripe whose only appearance is in the closing film style credits to the book) explains how they came to write the book (from where I have taken much of the detail above), what drew him to Kinski (including a three way comparison between Kinski, Christ and Iggy Pop) and the likely knowledge that the story that is increasingly obsessing him is potentially commercial suicide.

And from there we revisit both Kinski and again the author – with the closing section particularly strong as the two story lines almost merge,
 
Overall I thought this was a really fascinatingly and rather uniquely conceived and imaginatively executed novel – which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I would not be surprised to see it in contention for prizes – perhaps most likely the Goldsmith and Gordon Burn Prize, as I think it fits the experimentation of the former and the overall sense of the latter.

But overall it is one which really needs to be experienced.
 
My thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jesus Christ Kinski (2025) proves yet again that Benjamin Myers is a writer unconstrained by subject matter or style. After the Northern Soul novel (Rare Singles), and the fantastic Cuddy, which combines poetry, prose, diary entries and real historical accounts to relate the story of St. Cuthbert, here comes this extraordinarily bold, inventive and experimental, two part book that delves into the notorious German actor Klaus Kinski and the creative process itself.

Jesus Christ Kinski is "a novel, about a film, about a performance, about Jesus". To fully appreciate the book get onto YouTube and watch Kinski's 1971 one man show in West Berlin, Jesus Christus Erlöser (Jesus Christ Redeemer). Sections of the audience are outraged and heckle throughout the performance. Now you’re prepped for the book’s opening section which takes the reader in the fevered mind of Kinski during the first part of his performance and which captures Kinski's manic energy, paranoia, egotism, and violent borderline insanity. The performance itself is a spectacular self immolation and a perfect collision of megalomania, 1970s counter cultural provocation, and German post-war neuroses.

During the performance's intermission Ben Myers, "the writer", reflects on his own circumstances during the Covid lockdown, alongside meditations on creativity, separating art from the artist (given Kinski's abusive past), and the compulsive urge that drives artists to the edge. The writer becomes obsessed with the YouTube footage of Kinski’s performance and wonders about the wisdom of trying to write about it, especially following an unexpected commercial breakthrough in Germany.

Whilst perhaps not for everyone, I absolutely loved this short and powerful read that seems to capture the essence of Kinski and the act of writing. It's quite something.

4/5

[Zak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benjamin Myers is a fantastic writer.

He is, there is no doubt, an experimental artist, who has been trying to break the novels mould, within the mainstream scene he has been within for the past decade or two, only to find little fanfare.

Though he may see himself as a little read author, he is still in the bookstores. He isn't condemned to self publishing. He is in the mainstream.

Until his sweet, beautiful novel The Offing became a huge hit, Myers seemed to be struggling to make an impact.

Financially, not creatively.

Myers is at a place now, having finally become a Best-Selling writer/author, where, for a period of time, or maybe forever, we just don't know, that whatever work he has hiding at the back of a drawer, an old manuscript, or a wild idea, it will be read something that his publishers, who in the past, would never entertain, will now grab and release.

Why?

Because Myers has now made it, and with a Best Selling book, increases all past works to an exalted level. People want to read more of him, whilst his star continues to shine in the general reader populace's consciousness.

Those who fell in love with his Best Seller will seek out his older, earlier work. Work that has been adapted for the small screen, and now the big screen. Work that deserved a wider readership.

Jesus Christ Kinksi is much like a blank cheque for a film director. For years he's written books for them, kind of, rather than himself. And he is aware of this, the daring of writing such an unconventional and wild book.

Jesus Christ Kinski is a bold experimental idea that he is struggling to write, in fear that he will cancel himself, that or his career, where his agents and publisher will dismiss and state flatly, "No."

Luckily they didn't. And, it isn't a criticism that his work, left in a drawer, or previously deemed unreadable or a publishers death warrant, are now being viewed as marketable and saleable, it just works that way, and I'm happy that Benjamin is using this moment, his moment, to release his once upon a time, lesser novels and ideas, a chance to be read and experienced.

[Chris L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Benjamin Myers' 'Jesus Christ Kinski' is about a real life performance piece that the actor and provocateur Klaus Kinski did. If you're not interested in Kinski or don't have the patience for self-destructive performers, this book may not be for you. I am interested in Kinski's persona and how the public responded to him, so I was curious how Myers would create a fictionalised version of Kinski and his 1971 performance of 'Jesus Christ Saviour'.

Myers gives us Kinski's internal thoughts about the proceedings, and we read what he thinks and reacts to as this controversial night is happening. Myers also has Kinski respond to an interviewer who asks him inane questions that Kinski reacts to in a way that only Kinski could. Interspersed with this, we get a fictionalised version of a writer (Myers) who is writing a book about Kinski and the night of 'Jesus Christ Saviour'. The writer ponders why he is so drawn to this event, and what it means to write about someone so unknown (by most of the British reading public) and disliked (by those who are aware of Klaus Kinski).

Myers has created an admirable work here, but it works as an intellectual exercise. Myers does an excellent job of recreating Kinski and the performance, but Kinski is such an unlikeable character that he wears out his welcome. It's like being trapped in a room with those insufferable podcasters who live to insult and hate everyone. Myers understands this man, but there's only so much time I wanted to spend with him, which is one of the concerns the fictional author grapples with in the narrative. Why spend so much time with Kinski? In this case, it's for the way Myers seeks to understand Kinski and why we're often fascinated by creative people who do bad things.

[Mandy Packham · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Sometimes I have to stuff my fist into my mouth to stop myself from shrieking." That's exactly how I felt when I had finished Jesus Christ Kinski. The goosebumps are just as prevelant as they were when the credits rolled.

Benjamin Myers has done it again. He has defied the boundaries of genre and created a masterpiece. Considering my first introduction to Myers was reading The Offing, this couldn't be further away from what was produced then, and I love it. I love that when I pick up a book by this author, there is a sense of excitement and trepidation as I just dont know where my mind is going to be taken. I personally would like to liken Myers to the band Radiohead, in that you just dont know what they are going to produce next, and with each new release, they just get better and better, not sticking to what they know, and instead striving to enhance their art. Whether or not this will please fans or divide them doesn't seem to be at the forefront of their minds. Instead, they aim to be creative, and for that, I am along for the ride.

Whilst I was reading this book, I felt as erratic and volatile as Kinski. This was a bold exploration into his character. I adored the experimentation of writing styles throughout, which was unsettling and unnerving. I especially loved the bit where he gets a listhp, sorry lisp and thought this was a great way of depicting how a simple thought can become obtrusive and possessive, which in turn can affect our behaviour.

If you are looking for a clear, concise, neat little book with resolution, then this book won't be for you. If you want to feel unsettled and erratic and have your mind blown, strap yourself in, you are in for a bumpy ride, and watch out for glasses being thrown along the way.

[Margaret C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never read anything quite like this! Having read and enjoyed both The Offing and Cuddy and seen the dramatisation of The Gallows Pole I was really stretched out of my comfort zone by Benjamin Myers with this one!

It is book that goes between two timelines, fifty years apart. The first is an imagining of Klaus Kinski’s extremely disturbing internal monologue, during his ill fated and much publicised live solo performance on Jesus Christ in West Berlin in 1971. I watched some of the footage and it is uncomfortable viewing.
The second timeline is 2021 during Covid lockdown, the author is at home in Yorkshire and working on his new novel Cuddy but is obsessed with the YouTube footage of Kinski on that night in Berlin. The author and Kinski are the same age but it seems to be Kinski’s self destructive act in the performance, that intrigues the author and leads him to obsessively research the actor’s life.
This auto fictional part is a fascinating insight into the dilemmas of creativity, choice of subject matter, of expectation and of the practicalities of earning a living. While having a reputation as a volatile firebrand when he was alive Kinski is now believed to have abused at least one of his daughters and by modern standards would most definitely be ostracised, so a risky subject for a novel but the author feels compelled to take on this project which was, as he puts it “neither novel, biography nor memoir”.

The story weaves its way between the two timelines and is an extraordinary meditation on creativity, mental health / illness, obsession, and isolation.

[Georgia · Rating 2 out of 5]

dismally sophmoric onanism. i enjoy many of the structural notions inside this book - the author as wretch struggling to wrangle and then intruding upon his own creation, criminal beserkers of art, a metatextual indulgence that risks alienating the reader - but Myer's expressions are so stultifying, his ideas so inert that even though he explicates his reasons, its difficult to see what actually galvanises him about Kinski, and this specific performance. i loved his assertion that writing is an 'act of time travel and cosmic archaeology' - so to feel that portal of thought passed by in how he engaged with the metaphysical bowels of his subject was disappointing, in favour of a strawman screed against cancel culture - his conviction that Kinski has recently been cancelled would be hilarious if it wasn't so tedious. i found promise in the first 80 pages, but by the time he describes Kinski as 'Thatcher eyed', i had checked out. this is a man whose manicial solipsism spawned an autobiography in which he describes himself harnessing the flaxen locks of a giantess so he can scale and fuck her, and that's perhaps the least insane thing that happens. instead of frothing grotesque, Herzog's hornets that sting are rendered loafing flies on the wall, and the titular madman messiah is shouting at clouds. Happy New Year, losers?

i did really like the credits conceit, which was a chance to see my friend acknowledged for her brilliant work at Bloomsbury.

[Milly Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a surprising read and not what I was expecting from an author that I regularly read. But then again, I should know by now that no two books are the same. This novel which features the last stage performance by Klaus Kinski in Berlin with his show Jesus Christ Saviour. This performance is on YouTube and well worth watching. Reading the book first the rage and the anger are palpable but to watch it and the way that the audience turn is … The book is set up so that there is the first half of the performance and the in the intermission we have an auto-fictional account of the author writing this book. This was written during lockdown and from what I understand Myers was working on Cuddy but had just had success in Germany with the Offing and so his attention switched to Klaus Kinski. In this section he writes about watching videos, transcribing video and other research. He also writes about life during the pandemic and his feelings about Kinski who is a very controversial character but also something of a genius. A book that almost breaks the mould again and I wonder whether it will get a nod for the Goldsmiths Prize.

[Duncan Holmes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read a review of this before the publication date, and nearly pre-ordered it. The book centres on a stage performance by Klaus Kinski, Jesus Christ Erlöser (Saviour). Kinski stands alone in a beam of light, declaiming his own text about Christ and what he stood for. It’s tense and dramatic. The audience is mostly supportive but there is persistent heckling. People know he is volatile and seem intent on provoking a reaction. He walks out twice, each time starting again at the beginning. Eventually he is unwilling to continue. But at the end, after the credits, there is further 15 minutes with him standing among the remainder of the audience, late at night, starting over once again. It's an hour and a half long, and absolutely riveting.
I don’t think much of Myers though, and won’t be reading this book. Find the video on YouTube instead.

[Hassan Abdulrazzak · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is mercifully short and therefore holds the attention reasonably well but ultimately reads like a writing exercise for the author, who says a lot but ultimately keeps his cards close to his chest. I translated a play by Syrian writer Mudar Alhaggi also about an author’s obsession with a German figure, this time Alois Brunner, the nazi officer who fled to Syria and worked for their secret service. Alhaggi was much more successful in creating an intriguing drama where the autobiographical blends with the researched than Myers was able to do in this book. Perhaps what that ultimately points to is that Western writers living comfortable lives attempting this kind of blend of auto fiction will come up with something banal that doesn’t really reflect the world we live in anymore. The real stories that grip are coming from the east.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a versatile writer Benjamin Myers is, from The Golden Perfect Circle to Cuddy to Rare Singles to this. These could be the works of four different writers, so perhaps it is appropriate that this latest work brings this literary ventriloquism to the surface, Myers inhabits Kinski, in an astonishing feat of impersonation. It’s superbly written and convincing from start to finish. The other half of this novella is the author presenting himself as a character, and it’s a pleasant enough read, but it’s hard to shake off the vibe of Mike Yarwood (there’s a reference for the kids) doing his “and this is me” bit at the end of the show. Overall, I think this is a curio in a great career. It’s technically excellent, but ultimately rather slight.