Pinball

Patrick Domostroy music career once hit the heights, selling out big venues and garlanding positive reviews, but then lurid stories of his sex life and critical assessments of his music lead to a steep decline and now unable to write, he lives in a closed ballroom in the South Bronx and works as a jobbing musician in pinball joints, at weddings and even cockfighting evenings.
A young music student, Andrea Gwynplaine, makes Domostroy an extraordinary offer of money and sex, if he'll find a rock star called Goddard - whose real identity no one seems to know.
Kosinski weaves stories of sexual encounters, loneliness, failure, the need people feel for recognition at all levels of life, balanced against a desire to be true to their own show more natural and instinct.
He writes as well about music as he does sex. A failing perhaps is his dialogues on race. One of the main characters turns out to be a racist and there are discussions around black musicians which are uncomfortable reading. These read to me as character based prejudices and preconceptions, but Kosinski doesn't challenge them; a mild rebuke after one exchange is all. And his reservoir dogs style ending seems at odds with the pace and tone of what's gone before. While enjoying it greatly I have doubts about it's wider appeal. Or maybe I like the idea of this being a cult book few people have read, and even less admit liking. show less

Kosinski pairs music and sex in a compelling novel. His obsessions fascinate us and seem rather familiar.

Jerzy Kosinski was a great author and I loved many of his books but this one was pitiful. I think it was his last book before he committed suicide in the eighties. I read the entire book just to finish it, although I knew from the first twenty pages it was going to be awful.

Story: 8 / 10
Characters: 9
Setting: 9
Prose: 10