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Jerzy
"Jerome Charyn is one of the most important writers in American literature." --Michael Chabon
"One of our finest writers." --Jonathan Lethem
"One of our most intriguing fiction writers." -- O, The Oprah Magazine
"Charyn skillfully breathes life into historical icons." -- New Yorker
Jerzy Kosinski was a great enigma of post-World War II literature. When he exploded onto the American literary scene in 1965 with his best-selling novel The Painted Bird, he was revered as a Holocaust survivor and refugee from the world hidden behind the Soviet Iron Curtain. He won major literary awards, befriended actor Peter Sellers (who appeared in the screen adaptation of his novel Being There), and was a guest on talk shows and at the Oscars. But soon the facade began to crack, and behind the public persona emerged a ruthless social climber, sexual libertine, and pathological liar who may have plagiarized his greatest works.
Jerome Charyn lends his unmistakable style to this most American story of personal disintegration, told through the voices of multiple narrators--a homicidal actor, a dominatrix, and Joseph Stalin's daughter--who each provide insights into the shifting facets of Kosinski's personality. The story unfolds like a Russian nesting doll, eventually revealing the lost child beneath layers of trauma, while touching on the nature of authenticity, the atrocities of WWII, the allure of sadomasochism, and the fickleness of celebrity.
Jerome Charyn is the author of, most recently, A Loaded Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century, Bitter Thirteen Stories, I Am A Novel of Lincoln and the Civil War, and The Secret Life of Emily A Novel.
"One of our finest writers." --Jonathan Lethem
"One of our most intriguing fiction writers." -- O, The Oprah Magazine
"Charyn skillfully breathes life into historical icons." -- New Yorker
Jerzy Kosinski was a great enigma of post-World War II literature. When he exploded onto the American literary scene in 1965 with his best-selling novel The Painted Bird, he was revered as a Holocaust survivor and refugee from the world hidden behind the Soviet Iron Curtain. He won major literary awards, befriended actor Peter Sellers (who appeared in the screen adaptation of his novel Being There), and was a guest on talk shows and at the Oscars. But soon the facade began to crack, and behind the public persona emerged a ruthless social climber, sexual libertine, and pathological liar who may have plagiarized his greatest works.
Jerome Charyn lends his unmistakable style to this most American story of personal disintegration, told through the voices of multiple narrators--a homicidal actor, a dominatrix, and Joseph Stalin's daughter--who each provide insights into the shifting facets of Kosinski's personality. The story unfolds like a Russian nesting doll, eventually revealing the lost child beneath layers of trauma, while touching on the nature of authenticity, the atrocities of WWII, the allure of sadomasochism, and the fickleness of celebrity.
Jerome Charyn is the author of, most recently, A Loaded Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century, Bitter Thirteen Stories, I Am A Novel of Lincoln and the Civil War, and The Secret Life of Emily A Novel.
239 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 14, 2017
9 people are currently reading
308 people want to read
About the author
Jerome Charyn
221 books230 followersJerome Charyn is an award-winning American author. With more than 50 published works, Charyn has earned a long-standing reputation as an inventive and prolific chronicler of real and imagined American life.
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon calls him "one of the most important writers in American literature." New York Newsday hailed Charyn as "a contemporary American Balzac," and the Los Angeles Times described him as "absolutely unique among American writers."
Since the 1964 release of Charyn's first novel, Once Upon a Droshky, he has published thirty novels, three memoirs, eight graphic novels, two books about film, short stories, plays, and works of non-fiction. Two of his memoirs were named New York Times Book of the Year.
Charyn has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He received the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was named Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture. Charyn is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the American University of Paris.
In addition to writing and teaching, Charyn is a tournament table tennis player, once ranked in the top ten percent of players in France. Noted novelist Don DeLillo called Charyn's book on table tennis, Sizzling Chops & Devilish Spins, "The Sun Also Rises of ping-pong."
Charyn's most recent novel, Jerzy, was described by The New Yorker as a "fictional fantasia" about the life of Jerzy Kosinski, the controversial author of The Painted Bird. In 2010, Charyn wrote The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, an imagined autobiography of the renowned poet, a book characterized by Joyce Carol Oates as a "fever-dream picaresque."
Charyn lives in New York City. He's currently working with artists Asaf and Tomer Hanuka on an animated television series based on his Isaac Sidel crime novels.
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon calls him "one of the most important writers in American literature." New York Newsday hailed Charyn as "a contemporary American Balzac," and the Los Angeles Times described him as "absolutely unique among American writers."
Since the 1964 release of Charyn's first novel, Once Upon a Droshky, he has published thirty novels, three memoirs, eight graphic novels, two books about film, short stories, plays, and works of non-fiction. Two of his memoirs were named New York Times Book of the Year.
Charyn has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He received the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was named Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture. Charyn is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the American University of Paris.
In addition to writing and teaching, Charyn is a tournament table tennis player, once ranked in the top ten percent of players in France. Noted novelist Don DeLillo called Charyn's book on table tennis, Sizzling Chops & Devilish Spins, "The Sun Also Rises of ping-pong."
Charyn's most recent novel, Jerzy, was described by The New Yorker as a "fictional fantasia" about the life of Jerzy Kosinski, the controversial author of The Painted Bird. In 2010, Charyn wrote The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, an imagined autobiography of the renowned poet, a book characterized by Joyce Carol Oates as a "fever-dream picaresque."
Charyn lives in New York City. He's currently working with artists Asaf and Tomer Hanuka on an animated television series based on his Isaac Sidel crime novels.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 10, 2017
Author Charyn has written a dazzling novel - a literary "bio" - of the shadowy fakir Kosinski who ruled the NYC roost until it was discovered he didnt really exist. This smackdown is smart, inventive, provocative and, guess what?, extremely droll, which reviews do not suggest. Michael Chabon calls Charyn "one of the most important writers in American literature," and he may well be right. "Before there was Kosinski, there was Peter Sellers" is the ripe opening line. And we're off as Sellers, eager to film "Being There" is sick of playing Inspector Clouseau, though he's a royal family pet, as a result, like a toy dog. What's more, Princess Margaret, "something of a toy dog herself," is the object of his lust. Sellers had read that Chauncey Gardiner was one of "Ma'm's" favorite characters and Gardiner seems like a perfect vehicle for Sellers. Now the rights must be secured from Mr. K, "a bird-boy, a freak...forever secretive and cruel, with cunning as his protective color."
Soon we're at an NYC cocktail party given by Sen. Lionel Jaspers (ie, Jacob Javits) whose wife Annabelle (Marion Javits) rules Manhattan's High Culture: "There wasn't an emerging playwright, dancer, novelist, painter, architect or musician" who didn't wanna push into her penthouse. She's adopted Jerzy Kosinski : "He owned the authentic stink of Mittel Europe." What made him so popular? "He had survived the Holocaust as a bird-boy who had lost the power to sing or fly."
Charyn mixes fact-fiction with more spirit than Kosinski whose fantasy savagery gave readers of "The Painted Bird" (1965) wet panties, my god, how they got off about a Polish tot in W2 being hurled into a manure pile. They purred with S&M moans! Of course, it didnt happen to Jerzy, though he suggested it was all true -- until 1982 when Geoffrey Stokes & Eliot Fremont-Smith of NYs The Village Voice denounced him as a fakir. Possibly a CIA asset. Anyway, they reported that his novels were written by several "assistants" and some plots were plagiarized from old Polish tales unknown here. By now he was a social climbing Beau Brummel dining with film stars, publishers, politicians, tastemakers. His publicity was handled by NYT editors, Rosenthal & Gelb, who called him the ultimate survivor and they, after all, were proud connoisseurs of schlock. Jers gave 'em stiffies. They even had him pose half-naked for a NYT Magazine cover (Google: images). "Lies, lies, lies," Jers says here, "I'm a fraud. I cannot write without a helper."
Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, his neighbor in Princeton, offers a most captivating segment. Receiving tons of mail from good, kind people in Nebraska and Kansas, she signed her replies Lana. "I had the right to borrow it from Lana Turner. Couldn't I be a vamp and a witch even if I did not have all the Western wiles of seduction." Eventually they meet at the Nassau Inn, but, she asks, "What did he do all day? He didn't write, didn't teach, even though he was an honored lecturer, the genius who wrote 'The Painted Bird.' " He was always holding court at the Nassau Inn. They became friends and she keeps him company when he has a bout of depression and wants to do a prank, like robbing a bank. "They can't arrest you, Lana, you'll be on the cover of Time." Svetlana is not amused. "I dream of literature and wine, and all you can think about is the cover of Time Magazine," she scolds.
We also meet his millionairess wife and a dominatrix: "I order you to bite my nipples." Ah no, "I can't. My teeth are too soft. They'll fall out." She isnt appeased. "You should have worn your dentures. Bite my nipples."
This is true. It wasnt easy being Jers Kosinski - a psycho with many personalities. He killed himself in 1991 after attending a book party at the home of Gay Talese whose recent fake-book was "The Voyeur's Motel." (That party was the last straw). Talese told the NYT obit writer, "We were laughing last night." I bet you were.
Jers, I think, envied Andy Warhol, which no one has mentioned. (Of course, Andy was gay and Jers dare not speak his name). Andy ran a "Factory," not a studio. In his Factory, he had multiple assistants making hundreds of silk-screens; no one complained. He was candid about his art process. Warhol became a "star" in the 60s as he polished his inarticulate persona. Jers couldnt stop talking or appearing on Talk Shows. And worse, he said he wrote his novels in English, a deadly lie. He is the author of his own catastrophe and herein author Charyn shows that he was either ludicrous or pathetic.
Soon we're at an NYC cocktail party given by Sen. Lionel Jaspers (ie, Jacob Javits) whose wife Annabelle (Marion Javits) rules Manhattan's High Culture: "There wasn't an emerging playwright, dancer, novelist, painter, architect or musician" who didn't wanna push into her penthouse. She's adopted Jerzy Kosinski : "He owned the authentic stink of Mittel Europe." What made him so popular? "He had survived the Holocaust as a bird-boy who had lost the power to sing or fly."
Charyn mixes fact-fiction with more spirit than Kosinski whose fantasy savagery gave readers of "The Painted Bird" (1965) wet panties, my god, how they got off about a Polish tot in W2 being hurled into a manure pile. They purred with S&M moans! Of course, it didnt happen to Jerzy, though he suggested it was all true -- until 1982 when Geoffrey Stokes & Eliot Fremont-Smith of NYs The Village Voice denounced him as a fakir. Possibly a CIA asset. Anyway, they reported that his novels were written by several "assistants" and some plots were plagiarized from old Polish tales unknown here. By now he was a social climbing Beau Brummel dining with film stars, publishers, politicians, tastemakers. His publicity was handled by NYT editors, Rosenthal & Gelb, who called him the ultimate survivor and they, after all, were proud connoisseurs of schlock. Jers gave 'em stiffies. They even had him pose half-naked for a NYT Magazine cover (Google: images). "Lies, lies, lies," Jers says here, "I'm a fraud. I cannot write without a helper."
Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, his neighbor in Princeton, offers a most captivating segment. Receiving tons of mail from good, kind people in Nebraska and Kansas, she signed her replies Lana. "I had the right to borrow it from Lana Turner. Couldn't I be a vamp and a witch even if I did not have all the Western wiles of seduction." Eventually they meet at the Nassau Inn, but, she asks, "What did he do all day? He didn't write, didn't teach, even though he was an honored lecturer, the genius who wrote 'The Painted Bird.' " He was always holding court at the Nassau Inn. They became friends and she keeps him company when he has a bout of depression and wants to do a prank, like robbing a bank. "They can't arrest you, Lana, you'll be on the cover of Time." Svetlana is not amused. "I dream of literature and wine, and all you can think about is the cover of Time Magazine," she scolds.
We also meet his millionairess wife and a dominatrix: "I order you to bite my nipples." Ah no, "I can't. My teeth are too soft. They'll fall out." She isnt appeased. "You should have worn your dentures. Bite my nipples."
This is true. It wasnt easy being Jers Kosinski - a psycho with many personalities. He killed himself in 1991 after attending a book party at the home of Gay Talese whose recent fake-book was "The Voyeur's Motel." (That party was the last straw). Talese told the NYT obit writer, "We were laughing last night." I bet you were.
Jers, I think, envied Andy Warhol, which no one has mentioned. (Of course, Andy was gay and Jers dare not speak his name). Andy ran a "Factory," not a studio. In his Factory, he had multiple assistants making hundreds of silk-screens; no one complained. He was candid about his art process. Warhol became a "star" in the 60s as he polished his inarticulate persona. Jers couldnt stop talking or appearing on Talk Shows. And worse, he said he wrote his novels in English, a deadly lie. He is the author of his own catastrophe and herein author Charyn shows that he was either ludicrous or pathetic.
March 17, 2017
Because his persona was so strange and illusive, understanding Jerzy Kozinski was challenging for his biographer, James Park Sloan. In the final analysis, Sloan speculated that Kozinski suffered from alexithymia, a regression of feeling that "makes the affects useless in the processing of information." An alternative approach to the Kozinski story might be to imagine him in a work of historical fiction. This is what Jerome Charyn does in JERZY. In an interview, Charyn described Kozinski as “a shadow within a shadow within a shadow.” He never mastered the English language, a fact that lead to his eventual downfall because of his extensive use of “editors.” What he did master, however, was something he learned in Nazi-occupied Poland—the art of lying and dissembling. Charyn captures this quality admirably in his novel, but also portrays Kozinski as a gifted storyteller. Ultimately Kozinski used stories to once again survive. Only this time, it was not the Nazis, but a language and culture where he was never completely comfortable.
Charyn uses multiple narrators, some based on real people and others imagined, to tell Jerzy’s story. His approach is to start at the end and work backward through his colorful life to the time when Kozinski’s strange persona may have formed. He begins in the period of Kozinski’s peak fame, when he derived much satisfaction from social climbing and hobnobbing with celebrities, including Princess Margaret and Lord Snowden. Ian worked for Peter Sellers at the time and relates the story of Sellers’ intense interest in portraying Chauncey Gardner in a movie version of “Being There.” Kozinski loved playing hard to get with Sellers, but eventually relented. Because Sellers comes across as just about a weird as Kozinski, this part of the novel is quite amusing. One of the more humorous anecdotes in this section tells of a meeting between Sellers and Stan Laurel, who is now living in a retirement home and missing his longtime partner, Oliver Hardy. Sellers manages to convince Stan that he is Hardy with delightful results.
Svetlana Alliluyeva was briefly Jerzy’s neighbor on the faculty at Princeton. Jersy admired Stalin and was completely taken with Svetlana.
As the novel progresses backward, Charyn introduces Kozinski’s alcoholic ex-wife. As a consummate social climber, Jerzy saw the obvious advantages in being married to the heir to the petroleum jelly fortune. However, he demonstrates little real affection for or loyalty to this bizarre woman.
Next up is Anna Karenina, a dominatrix who Kozinski meets while patronizing her sex club. Caryn uses this relationship to introduce his problems with eclectic storytelling encumbered by awkward writing in English. Anna provides Jerzy with an extremely talented and sexy young editor who manages to re-write his prose using Stalin’s much loved green pencil.
The most revealing chapter deals with Jerzy’s early life in Poland. He often told the story, related in “The Painted Bird”, of abandonment by his parents during the war and being left to wander the countryside. Charyn sets that record straight by depicting Jerzy, surviving as a Jew in Nazi-occupied Poland, not by abandonment, but by dissembling. His father managed to hide him and his family right under the noses of the Germans by masquerading as Catholics.
The narrative deftly travels backward by carefully pealing away the layers of Kozinski’s bizarre life, much like an archeologist would, to reveal a few shards of truth. We discover a traumatized boy who learned to survive and even succeed by his wits and imagination.
Charyn approaches his subject with a clear eye. At the height of his career, Kozinski did enjoy many successes. He was a major literary figure, winning prestigious awards. He made the acquaintance of famous and powerful people and was a darling of the talk show circuit. Charyn also gives us a ruthless social climber, sexual libertine, pathological liar and strange exhibitionist. On balance, he returns to where he started. “There is no meaning. He was a shadow within a shadow within a shadow.”
Charyn uses multiple narrators, some based on real people and others imagined, to tell Jerzy’s story. His approach is to start at the end and work backward through his colorful life to the time when Kozinski’s strange persona may have formed. He begins in the period of Kozinski’s peak fame, when he derived much satisfaction from social climbing and hobnobbing with celebrities, including Princess Margaret and Lord Snowden. Ian worked for Peter Sellers at the time and relates the story of Sellers’ intense interest in portraying Chauncey Gardner in a movie version of “Being There.” Kozinski loved playing hard to get with Sellers, but eventually relented. Because Sellers comes across as just about a weird as Kozinski, this part of the novel is quite amusing. One of the more humorous anecdotes in this section tells of a meeting between Sellers and Stan Laurel, who is now living in a retirement home and missing his longtime partner, Oliver Hardy. Sellers manages to convince Stan that he is Hardy with delightful results.
Svetlana Alliluyeva was briefly Jerzy’s neighbor on the faculty at Princeton. Jersy admired Stalin and was completely taken with Svetlana.
As the novel progresses backward, Charyn introduces Kozinski’s alcoholic ex-wife. As a consummate social climber, Jerzy saw the obvious advantages in being married to the heir to the petroleum jelly fortune. However, he demonstrates little real affection for or loyalty to this bizarre woman.
Next up is Anna Karenina, a dominatrix who Kozinski meets while patronizing her sex club. Caryn uses this relationship to introduce his problems with eclectic storytelling encumbered by awkward writing in English. Anna provides Jerzy with an extremely talented and sexy young editor who manages to re-write his prose using Stalin’s much loved green pencil.
The most revealing chapter deals with Jerzy’s early life in Poland. He often told the story, related in “The Painted Bird”, of abandonment by his parents during the war and being left to wander the countryside. Charyn sets that record straight by depicting Jerzy, surviving as a Jew in Nazi-occupied Poland, not by abandonment, but by dissembling. His father managed to hide him and his family right under the noses of the Germans by masquerading as Catholics.
The narrative deftly travels backward by carefully pealing away the layers of Kozinski’s bizarre life, much like an archeologist would, to reveal a few shards of truth. We discover a traumatized boy who learned to survive and even succeed by his wits and imagination.
Charyn approaches his subject with a clear eye. At the height of his career, Kozinski did enjoy many successes. He was a major literary figure, winning prestigious awards. He made the acquaintance of famous and powerful people and was a darling of the talk show circuit. Charyn also gives us a ruthless social climber, sexual libertine, pathological liar and strange exhibitionist. On balance, he returns to where he started. “There is no meaning. He was a shadow within a shadow within a shadow.”
December 23, 2016
I was fortunate enough to receive an ARC and read it immediately, then again after reading Kosinski's The Painted Bird and Svetlana Alliluyeva's Twenty Letters to a Friend ("Lana" was Stalin's daughter and Jerzy's best friend.) My favorite author's novel about one of his favorite authors. Absolutely amazing from the first word to the last.
February 22, 2017
I received this as a free ARC through Librarything from the publisher, Bellevue Literary Press, in exchange for an honest review.
If I'm being 100% honest, I had no idea who Jerzy Kosiński was prior to my reading this and, despite frequent references to his writing, I think, in the long run, it was better that way. It allowed me to go in without any preconceived notion of the man and let Jerome Charyn paint a picture of him in front of me, even if this is only a fictitious recreation of what may or may not have happened. In a way, it made him as mysterious to me as it did the people around him, telling the story.
That threw me for a loop at first, if I'm to be frank. Upon initially reading the description on Librarything, I thought the book would be from Kosiński's perspective, perhaps with him as an unreliable narrator, but it wasn't. Instead, it's broken up into sections and each voice is someone closer and closer to this mysterious man until, finally, we arrive at the segment pertaining to one of his beloved characters. Each acquaintance and confidant up to that point shed a different light on this mysterious man, but the final two sections are, possibly, the most telling.
The section, just before the end, entitled "Little Red" is from the perspective of a woman whom allegedly helped him write his novels as well as aided in finding him ghostwriters to round them out. This woman was also gives us an idea of what was going on as Kosiński's purported charade began to unravel. The final section takes the reader into an entirely new realm and allows a glimpse into the origin of Kosiński's stories. We finally meet Kosiński's father, his mother, and his idol and arguably his most popular character, Gavrila. I have a feeling this section would make a lot more sense after reading The Painted Bird, which I intend to do, once I find a copy.
Overall, I'd definitely recommend this novel, though I really can't pinpoint an exact audience.
If I'm being 100% honest, I had no idea who Jerzy Kosiński was prior to my reading this and, despite frequent references to his writing, I think, in the long run, it was better that way. It allowed me to go in without any preconceived notion of the man and let Jerome Charyn paint a picture of him in front of me, even if this is only a fictitious recreation of what may or may not have happened. In a way, it made him as mysterious to me as it did the people around him, telling the story.
That threw me for a loop at first, if I'm to be frank. Upon initially reading the description on Librarything, I thought the book would be from Kosiński's perspective, perhaps with him as an unreliable narrator, but it wasn't. Instead, it's broken up into sections and each voice is someone closer and closer to this mysterious man until, finally, we arrive at the segment pertaining to one of his beloved characters. Each acquaintance and confidant up to that point shed a different light on this mysterious man, but the final two sections are, possibly, the most telling.
The section, just before the end, entitled "Little Red" is from the perspective of a woman whom allegedly helped him write his novels as well as aided in finding him ghostwriters to round them out. This woman was also gives us an idea of what was going on as Kosiński's purported charade began to unravel. The final section takes the reader into an entirely new realm and allows a glimpse into the origin of Kosiński's stories. We finally meet Kosiński's father, his mother, and his idol and arguably his most popular character, Gavrila. I have a feeling this section would make a lot more sense after reading The Painted Bird, which I intend to do, once I find a copy.
Overall, I'd definitely recommend this novel, though I really can't pinpoint an exact audience.
February 22, 2017
This book describes the author Jerzy Kosinski through five different people's views/time periods in his life. It is highly entertaining with great detail and will keep you guessing...about what constitutes the truth. And just a random aside, when Jerzy speaks, I always imagined Holly Golightly telling stories in the setting of Dr. Zhivago.
May 5, 2017
Jerzy Kosinski is a man of secrets. A man who is full of dreams, though sometimes he has a hard time expressing them to the world around him. To those who know him, he is an enigma. Deep inside, he knows what he wants, when he wants it. Despite the fact that so many obstacles cross his path every day, he is determined in making something of himself. He'll do anything to achieve his every goal, no matter the cost.
A fictitious biographical tale about such an intriguing man, Jerome Charyn tells the story of Jerzy Kosinski through a myriad of perspectives. Each perspective throws us deeper into Jerzy's life and the circumstances that surround his existence. This is a man who refused to sit on the sidelines while life passed him. He immersed himself in his hopes, his dreams, his desires, striving every day to overcome the uncertainties, the pain, and the heartache he experiences often.
We're given glimpses into the secrets Jerzy kept throughout his entire life. Language barriers often frustrated him, but he didn't let it deter him from climbing through the ranks. It was delightful to see him rub elbows with so many interesting characters. To also see him portrayed through the various perspectives used throughout the book allows us to envision the world he lives in, as well as who he truly is.
Jerzy never cared about the real truth that surrounded him and loved to keep people guessing. He'd do whatever he deemed necessary to get from point A to point B. Jerome shows us this with every turn of the page. Despite the fact that Jerzy was a ruthless, pathological liar who moved through the social circles that surrounded him, we also get to see his vulnerabilities. Mind you, this is a man who tried to hide those vulnerabilities whenever possible, often detesting the fact when his carefully constructed facade started to crumble. Nevertheless, he was able to make a name for himself, while always retaining a sense of mystery around him at all times.
Such a tumultuous story, Jerzy keeps the reader's attention from start to finish. The author's truly unique style of storytelling allows us to envision each character and the environments they find themselves. He truly does paint such vivid pictures! We can feel what the characters feel, and see what they see as they move forward throughout the lives they lead. I definitely recommend this book!
A fictitious biographical tale about such an intriguing man, Jerome Charyn tells the story of Jerzy Kosinski through a myriad of perspectives. Each perspective throws us deeper into Jerzy's life and the circumstances that surround his existence. This is a man who refused to sit on the sidelines while life passed him. He immersed himself in his hopes, his dreams, his desires, striving every day to overcome the uncertainties, the pain, and the heartache he experiences often.
We're given glimpses into the secrets Jerzy kept throughout his entire life. Language barriers often frustrated him, but he didn't let it deter him from climbing through the ranks. It was delightful to see him rub elbows with so many interesting characters. To also see him portrayed through the various perspectives used throughout the book allows us to envision the world he lives in, as well as who he truly is.
Jerzy never cared about the real truth that surrounded him and loved to keep people guessing. He'd do whatever he deemed necessary to get from point A to point B. Jerome shows us this with every turn of the page. Despite the fact that Jerzy was a ruthless, pathological liar who moved through the social circles that surrounded him, we also get to see his vulnerabilities. Mind you, this is a man who tried to hide those vulnerabilities whenever possible, often detesting the fact when his carefully constructed facade started to crumble. Nevertheless, he was able to make a name for himself, while always retaining a sense of mystery around him at all times.
Such a tumultuous story, Jerzy keeps the reader's attention from start to finish. The author's truly unique style of storytelling allows us to envision each character and the environments they find themselves. He truly does paint such vivid pictures! We can feel what the characters feel, and see what they see as they move forward throughout the lives they lead. I definitely recommend this book!
August 25, 2017
Fascinating little gem of a book. A series of interrelated novellas, the "novel" presents five fictionalized slices of the life of enigmatic writer Jerzy Kosinski, each written from a dramatically different point of view.
I haven't read anything by Kosinski in decades, but I remember being captivated by his tense and energetic style, a unique style that seems to reflected in "Jerzy." I haven't read anything else by Charyn, so I don't know if that's just the way he writes, or if writing "Jerzy" in Jerzy's style is part of the literary package -- or if it's not really in Kosinski's style and I just have a bad memory. But it sure felt like I was given an unexpected chance to spend some time with an old friend.
I haven't read anything by Kosinski in decades, but I remember being captivated by his tense and energetic style, a unique style that seems to reflected in "Jerzy." I haven't read anything else by Charyn, so I don't know if that's just the way he writes, or if writing "Jerzy" in Jerzy's style is part of the literary package -- or if it's not really in Kosinski's style and I just have a bad memory. But it sure felt like I was given an unexpected chance to spend some time with an old friend.
May 5, 2017
Charyn takes a fictional look at the life of the controversial author of The Painted Bird and Being There. Jerzy Kosinski, if even a sliver of this book is true, must have been a hypnotic character. How much did he write? How much did he plagiarize? You will be challenged to come to a conclusion.
But does it really matter?
But does it really matter?
December 3, 2019
Well written, strange psuedo-realistic portayal of a real person. The person, Jerzy, was strange, so it makes sense that any stories around him be surreal. However, the book does start to feel a bit repetitive after the initial shock of the stories wear off. Perhaps best read as a pure novel and not as a strange biopic.
February 3, 2018
Fictionalized bio of Jerzy Kozinski. Makes you wonder how much is real.
Told by having different narrators tell about specific times in Jerzy's life.
In all of them Jerzy come across as an asshole but if you want to read about an interesting person, you might as well choose an asshole.
Told by having different narrators tell about specific times in Jerzy's life.
In all of them Jerzy come across as an asshole but if you want to read about an interesting person, you might as well choose an asshole.
December 16, 2017
It was hard to determine if this was completely fictional, or the author had actually spoken to people who had known Jerzy. It also wasn't my kind of genre, so it was difficult to get into.
December 1, 2016
Nie powiem, że książka wciąga od pierwszych stron, bo tak nie jest. Początek mnie nużył, kartki przewracałam leniwie. Dopiero około 80 strony tak naprawdę mnie ona zaciekawiła. Dlatego też osobom szykującym się do lektury "Jerzego Kosińskiego" autorstwa Jerome Charyna zalecam przede wszystkim cierpliwość. Dzięki niej będą mogli poznać historię barwną, bezpruderyjną, momentami zaś obsceniczną i gorszącą. Ale taki właśnie był Jerzy Kosiński w micie, którego sam był autorem.
Całość na: http://wiedzma-czyta.blogspot.com/201...
Całość na: http://wiedzma-czyta.blogspot.com/201...
April 15, 2017
Appreciated more than liked.
May 13, 2017
This is a hilarious, creepy, brilliantly written book. Reminiscent of Nabokov in its hall-of-mirrors approach to reality, the prose is rich and inventive. I found myself reading it slowly, savoring each sentence. (A habit got into while reading Nabokov, Theroux, and a few other writers who craft sentences so beautiful they are worth tasting over and over.)
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June 25, 2017Good. But I've read The Painted Bird 19 times so I'm the right audience for this one.
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July 28, 2017Booklist Kirkus
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