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101 reviews for:
Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade
Walter Kirn
3.05 AVERAGE
101 reviews for:
Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade
Walter Kirn
3.05 AVERAGE
I spent my time vacillating between "OMG these people are so gullible to be hoodwinked by this shyster" to "OMG I wonder if any of my friends are who they say they are". Some of the book was painful to read ie bad editing and not enough details to flesh out what was going through the minds of the people. But over all I applaud the writer for telling us what happened.
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
I really was most interested in this book. But by the end of it I was heartily tired of it. Mr. Kirn is a very successful writer, but disappointingly I found this story quite narcissistic. Mr. Kirn sounds like a jilted betrayed girlfriend - enough already. More about Clark Rockefeller, what made him tick would have been welcome relief. Many will enjoy this, not my cup of tea.
The entire time I read this book, I could not help thinking only a handful of gullible people would ever be hoodwinked by a character as pathetic and disturbing as "Clark Rockefeller". And Walter Kirn was one of them. In fact, the entire book appears to be a defense of his naïveté, meant to soothe his wounded ego at having been taken in by such a con artist. "Look", he seems to be saying " it wasn't just me! There were lots of us. I'm good enough. I'm smart enough and people like me!" But the Stuart Smalley act can only go so far. It appears Kirn has spent the better half of his life playing the sycophant to the rich and famous at the expense of all common sense. And yet at the end of this book, where we wonder whether the narrator has any self awareness, I personally couldn't drum up much sympathy for him, as he continually denigrates others to boost his own ego.
Kirn portrays his serial fascination and intermittent brushes with the rich and famous as "friendship", even though he makes it clear he neither liked nor trusted "Rockefellor" during their 15 year acquaintance. He constantly derides his Preppy Princeton colleagues,while simultaneously coveting their lifestyles. He alludes that his failed marriage to a "teenager" was a matter of his being more "mature", when in fact, it is quite apparent that the marriage was precipitated by the authors' obsession with his wife's famous" parents, and ended most likely due to his Ritalin and alcohol addiction than to his moral and intellectual superiority over his teenage bride.
But my one real takeaway was....Yes. The law of attraction is real. Walter Kirn and "Clark Rockefellor" were meant to meet at some karmic level. For every successful psychopath, con artist and liar out there, there is an unsuspecting "victim" right around the corner. And let's hope with a little more self analysis and insight Mr Kirn may also learn to look in the rear view mirror before backing trucks over babies, wear weather appropriate gear and remembering where he parks when spontaneously cutting down trees in subzero temperatures, and review road signs when driving in unfamiliar locations. That common sense might come in handy some day, and is something they don't teach you at Princeton and Oxford.
Kirn portrays his serial fascination and intermittent brushes with the rich and famous as "friendship", even though he makes it clear he neither liked nor trusted "Rockefellor" during their 15 year acquaintance. He constantly derides his Preppy Princeton colleagues,while simultaneously coveting their lifestyles. He alludes that his failed marriage to a "teenager" was a matter of his being more "mature", when in fact, it is quite apparent that the marriage was precipitated by the authors' obsession with his wife's famous" parents, and ended most likely due to his Ritalin and alcohol addiction than to his moral and intellectual superiority over his teenage bride.
But my one real takeaway was....Yes. The law of attraction is real. Walter Kirn and "Clark Rockefellor" were meant to meet at some karmic level. For every successful psychopath, con artist and liar out there, there is an unsuspecting "victim" right around the corner. And let's hope with a little more self analysis and insight Mr Kirn may also learn to look in the rear view mirror before backing trucks over babies, wear weather appropriate gear and remembering where he parks when spontaneously cutting down trees in subzero temperatures, and review road signs when driving in unfamiliar locations. That common sense might come in handy some day, and is something they don't teach you at Princeton and Oxford.
'Blood Will Out' is two books in one. The first few chapters essentially stand on their own as a darkly humorous tale of the author, a journalist living on a ranch in Montana, covering the meth-addled depressed towns in the area, who strangely winds up transporting a paralyzed dog across the country for its new owner in Manhattan. Then the book switches gears and becomes a true-crime drama and the author reveals and explores how he became friends with someone (the dog owner) who, unbeknownst to him, was a murderer. The prose in the first part is sterling, crisp, some of the best I've ever read. It becomes considerably more matter-of-fact, though no less compelling, in telling the story of the bizarre psychopath who fooled so many people so easily.
The book is the author's reflection on his relationship with the convicted murderer, kidnapper, and conman Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter. The story is slightly interesting and there are some good insights into the pathology of Gerhartsreiter, but overall I found the story to plod along.
The author doesn't spare any self-criticism in his role in the friendship or attempt to paint himself in a positive light. If I'm mistaken about this, then he is a piece of work too.
The author doesn't spare any self-criticism in his role in the friendship or attempt to paint himself in a positive light. If I'm mistaken about this, then he is a piece of work too.
True crime books are rather a guilty pleasure of mine. And I loved the Ripley novels. So this Ripley meets In Cold Blood tale (as one review I read described it) should have been right up my summer reading alley. But no. Insipid. Sexist. Worst of all, achingly dull. Such a disappointment.
A tickling read. What engrossing characters. Kirn, Clark Rockefeller, even the supporting ‘cast.’ Blood Will Out pulls you in to a quirky world of mystery and the (darkly humourous) naiveté of human beings.
This book is as much about Walter Kirn as it is about Clark Rockefeller, if not more so. But much more importantly it is about how we are prone to see what we want to in people. Furthermore, the risk in doing so is to create uncertainty in, and of, ourselves.
In alluding to the story’s resonance with the writing of the greatest psychologist himself, Dostoevsky, Kirn has written himself onto the same field.
This book is as much about Walter Kirn as it is about Clark Rockefeller, if not more so. But much more importantly it is about how we are prone to see what we want to in people. Furthermore, the risk in doing so is to create uncertainty in, and of, ourselves.
In alluding to the story’s resonance with the writing of the greatest psychologist himself, Dostoevsky, Kirn has written himself onto the same field.
Talk about burying the lead! Walter Kirn is handed a true crime story: His high society pal of 15 years isn't a Rockefeller, but a con man & gruesome murderer. It's noir gold. A charming homicidal charlatan, a dismembered body, even human bones buried under a swimming pool. But Kirn’s pretentious prose focuses on, well, himself. Dude, you’ve got bones in a swimming pool! Instead we read endless musing on Kirn’s affected Princeton literary persona, his afternoons sipping gin at the Lotos Club, his conquests with women who “treated sex like naked theater.” (Huh?) Even his childhood thumb-sucking. This book is why people hate writers.
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
You should know from the start that the author is not a likable character and he seems to harbor a lot of negative feelings about women in general. He does however put it all out there in telling the story. The book is marketed as true crime but it’s much more of a memoir. Specifically it explores how the author could have been so taken in and conned by a modern real life Talented Mr. Ripley. That aspect will be especially compelling for anyone who likes cult and scam stories.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism, Murder, Toxic friendship
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death
Minor: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Alcohol