Steps (book)

{{Infobox book

| name = Steps

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| image = File:StepsKosinski.jpg

| border = yes

| caption = First edition (US)

| author = Jerzy Kosiński

| illustrator =

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| country = United States

| language = English

| series =

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| publisher = Random House (US)
The Bodley Head (UK)

| release_date = 1968

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| preceded_by = The Painted Bird

| followed_by = Being There

}}

Steps is a book by a Polish-American writer Jerzy Kosiński, released in 1968 by Random House. The work comprises scores of loosely connected vignettes or short stories, which explore themes of social control and alienation by depicting scenes rich in erotic and violent motives. It was Kosiński's second novel, a follow-up to his successful The Painted Bird released in 1965. Steps won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1969.

Content

Steps consists of a series of short stories, reminiscences, anecdotes and dialogues, loosely linked to each other or having no connection at all, written in the first person. The book does not name any characters or places where described situations take place.{{cite web |url=http://voiceimitator.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/jerzy-kosinski-steps-1968.html |title=Jerzy Kosinski: Steps (1968) |author=Brian Rajski |publisher=voiceimitator.blogspot.co.uk |accessdate=2012-07-19}}

The book has been interpreted as being about "a Polish man's difficulties under the harsh Soviet regime at home played against his experiences as a new immigrant to the United States and its bizarre codes of capitalism."{{cite web |url=http://biblioklept.org/2010/08/22/steps-jerzy-kosinski/ |title=Steps — Jerzy Kosinski |author=Edwin Turner |date=2010-08-22 |publisher=biblioklept.org |accessdate=2012-07-19}} The stories reflect upon control, power, domination and alienation, depicting scenes full of brutality or sexually explicit. Steps contains remarkable autobiographical elements{{cite web |url=http://lubimyczytac.pl/ksiazka/55653/kroki |title=Kroki - Jerzy Kosiński |publisher=lubimyczytac.pl |accessdate=2012-07-19 |language=Polish}} and numerous references to World War II.

Reception

Despite its commercial failure, especially when compared to The Painted Bird, Steps met with generally positive critics' reviews{{Cite journal |last = Cahill|first = Daniel J.|title = Kosinski and His Critics|journal = The North American Review|volume = 265|issue = 1|pages = 66–68|year = 1980|publisher = University of Northern Iowa|jstor = 25125774|issn = 0029-2397|url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/25125774|accessdate = 2020-10-03}} and eventually won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1969.{{cite web |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1969 |title=1969 National Book Awards Winners and Finalists |publisher=National Book Foundation |accessdate=2012-03-28}} Canadian critic Hugh Kenner in his review of Steps in The New York Times compared it to the works by Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Franz Kafka.{{Cite magazine |last = Rothstein|first = Mervyn|title = In Novels and Life, a Maverick and an Eccentric|magazine = The New York Times|page = 10|date = 1991-05-04|issn = 0362-4331|url = https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/04/obituaries/in-novels-and-life-a-maverick-and-an-eccentric.html|accessdate = 2020-10-03}}

In 1975, a freelance writer Chuck Ross, in order to prove his theory that unknown authors always find their books rejected, sent out excerpts from Steps to four different publishers, using the pseudonym Erik Demos. All four did not accept the sample. In 1977, Ross sent out the entire book to ten publishers, including Random House, which had originally published the book,{{cite web |url=http://www.nbafictionblog.org/nba-winning-books-blog/1969.html |title=1969: Steps By Jerzy Kosinksi |author=Harold Augenbraum |publisher=www.nbafictionblog.org |accessdate=2012-07-19}} and thirteen literary agents. Again, the book was rejected, also by Random House, having not been recognized, despite being an award-winning work.{{cite web |url=http://www.delamar.org/gwrejected.htm |title=Getting Rejected? Feeling Rejected? |author=Gloria T. Delamar |publisher=www.delamar.org |accessdate=2012-07-19}}

American novelist David Foster Wallace in 1999 named Steps one of "five direly underappreciated U.S. novels", describing it as a "collection of unbelievably creepy little allegorical tableaux done in a terse elegant voice that's like nothing else anywhere ever." He further praised that "only Kafka's fragments get anywhere close to where Kosinski goes in this book, which is better than everything else he ever did combined."{{cite web |url=https://www.salon.com/1999/04/12/wallace/ |title=Overlooked |author=David Foster Wallace |work=Salon |date=1999-04-12 |accessdate=2010-03-19}}