American Scoundrel

‘A masterful biography … In their superlative biography, American Scoundrel, authors Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark sum up this wicked man … a gripping, frightening book, meticulously researched, about a terrible person – one whom I’d not even want to dignify as a sort of Richard III or Tony Soprano’ – Roger Lewis * Telegraph (5*) *
‘A book Trumpworld doesn’t want you to read … a propulsive, horrifying biography of Roy Cohn’ – Martin Pengelly * Guardian *
‘A gripping and revelatory new biography’ – Christopher Grimes * Financial Times *
‘A thorough and readable account of Cohn’s astonishing life and career … an elegant retelling of the lurid Cohn story … recounts Cohn’s eventful life in well-chosen detail’ – Jennifer Szalai * New York Times *
‘A definitive modern biography … a riveting, authoritative and page-turning account of a public figure as consequential as he was wicked … intrinsically fascinating because of its subject, also establishes beyond doubt the indispensable role that Cohn played in the formation and rise of the 45th and 47th president’ – Matthew d’Ancona * New World *
‘I gobbled up every page of Kai Bird’s American Scoundrel … This is a dirty story but, as Bird notes, one that has turned out to be seminal in American politics … The book is a bounteous cornucopia of midcentury sleaze and uneasily addictive for just that reason. It’s got Mafia hits and frame jobs and blackmail and bribery and election tampering. It’s got forgery and insurance scams and perjury and espionage and sex trafficking and a lot of tax evasion. It makes James Ellroy novels look like Theo of Golden by comparison, and it makes for mesmerising reading’ – Laura Miller * Slate *
‘Revelatory … Set to be one of the most explosive books of the year … Prometheus gives way to Mephistopheles; pages turn wickedly fast … The venality and corruption, blackmail and sheer brazenness of the public lying Bird portrays is eye-popping, infuriating, disgusting – yet also, at times, darkly comic … If you want to understand Donald Trump, read this book’ * Bookseller *
‘Effective … Bird gives us a new way to think about Cohn, Trump and the legacy of McCarthyism … Looking at the long arc of Cohn’s career shows how much of McCarthyism was about ambition and careerism, rather than ideology. Cohn’s friends and clients were obsequious to him because they thought he could get them things no one else could’ * Atlantic *
‘An astonishing biography … The book excels as a masterful dissection of Cohn’s strange, contradictory and immoral character … It adds up to an extraordinary portrait of a singular American figure whose callousness and brazenness continue to mar the country 40 years after his death’ * Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) *
‘A comprehensive portrait of a truculent lawyer who shot to infamy in the 1950s and remained a scandalous figure until his death … A thorough, deeply reported life story of the gleefully villainous lawyer who moulded a U.S. president’ * Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) *

Kai Bird is an acclaimed biographer and journalist. With Martin J. Sherwin, he won the Pulitzer Prize for biography for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, which was the inspiration for Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award-winning Best Picture, Oppenheimer. Bird is the executive director at the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. He has won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Duff Cooper Prize for History and is the recipient of numerous fellowships. His work includes critical writings on the Vietnam War, Hiroshima, nuclear weapons, the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the CIA. He is an elected member of the prestigious Society of American Historians.

Susan Goldmark, Kai Bird’s wife and chief researcher, has worked in over seventy-five countries – in consulting, for nonprofits, and at the World Bank. She was a World Bank Country Director in Nepal and later in Latin America. She holds a BA from Carleton College and a graduate degree in development economics from Princeton University. Susan has been Kai’s muse for decades and led the research for American Scoundrel.

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