Author Bio
I’m with Stupid is my first book, and it was written thanks to booze: I began it after returning from a press junket in South Africa sponsored by an alcohol company. I can hear certain members of my family now: Why tell the people that? Don’t talk about booze! It’s not nice! Talk about where you came from! Talk about your schooling and career! And make sure to stress that the book is fiction so no one thinks you’re loose or that your mother is pushy like the mother in the book! All right, I’ll try not to mention booze again, though what I said is technically true.
I was born in Kraków, Poland, and immigrated to Chicago, Illinois, with my parents, Maria and Stanislaw, three months before the country was placed under martial law by the communist government. (Not a good time to be a Polish writer, to understate a point.) I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and began my writing career at the Financial Times, as an assistant, and currently serve as editor of Kirkus Reviews, a book review journal. I’m with Stupid is a work of fiction; I am not loose; my own mother is not pushy. She’s delicious. And so is my father, and my brother, Robert. But more about that press junket…
My friend Patty, at the time working for a men’s magazine, had been invited, along with a few other writers, and mentioned that the company was looking for one more person. I called the public relations department at her suggestion, not at all convinced anything would come of it, and the next day stood in my apartment holding round-trip business-class tickets to Africa and an itinerary. I was going to Johannesburg, Cape Town, and on safari—all for free. I had three days to pack.
When the news sank in I began to laugh maniacally like a black-gloved villain who got away with bank robbery, which is how I felt. That evening, while buying travel-size toiletries, I volunteered to clerks and shoppers, in a casual, slightly bored tone like this happens all the time, that I was "off to Africa." I even told a guy at the video store. I might have sighed.
The weeklong trip found Patty and me bonding with two other journalists (conveniently named Elizabeth and Elizabeth, and now my close friends) and exploring the land. There was some official business but mostly we hung out and had fun, giving me ample time to consider scenarios, both real and imagined, that would inform the writing of I’m with Stupid, a book in part inspired by South Africa, where I never would have traveled had it not been for booze.
Kruger National Park Safari 
Kruger National Park Safari
Boulders Beach, Cape Town 
Boulders Beach, Cape Town