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coleycole's review against another edition
3.0
This is a lot more about Walter Kirn than it is about Clark Rockefeller, and in some ways I think reveals more than Kirn explicitly intends about the kind of person who would fall for a con man like Rockefeller...
jnordgren's review against another edition
1.0
Threw this on the DNF pile halfway through. A bunch of navel-gazing garbage poorly marketed as true crime.
blamy's review against another edition
3.0
This was an interesting read but I didn't realize until I read some Goodreads reviews prior to starting the book, that it was more about Kirn's relationship with "Rockefeller" than about the man himself. Still, it was an interesting look into how those who got pulled into Clark's world dealt with the revelation of his true nature.
cassf's review against another edition
3.0
I heard an interview with the author and thought this book would be more interesting than it was. As another reviewer pointed out, it was more about the Walter Kirn than Clark Rockefeller.
johndiconsiglio's review against another edition
2.0
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.
meghan111's review against another edition
3.0
Walter Kirn, the novelist and journalist, tells the true story of his 15-year friendship with the man he knew as Clark Rockefeller, the man who turned out to be a possibly sociopathic imposter and accused murderer. Their relationship begins when Kirn undertakes a cross-country journey from Montana to New York to deliver a paralyzed rescue dog to Clark, who he believes to be a wealthy member of the Rockefeller clan. As the story unfolds, Kirn also interrogates his own behaviors and his own experiences reinventing or stretching the truth of his own life. Riveting.
carolpk's review against another edition
4.0
The Hook - Like an accident or a fire the voyeur in me can’t resist a con man unless I’m the poor soul being conned.
The Line – “He’s the villain with a thousand faces, a kind of charming, dark-side-cowboy, perennially slipping off into the sunset and reappearing at dawn in a new outfit.
The Sinker – Blood Will Out: The True Story of A Murder, A Mystery, and a Masquerade is my book group’s pick this January. Even though I knew much about the fictitious life of Clark Rockefeller, there were still surprises. OMG, he is the master of deceit. Just imagine being on the receiving end of his schemes and blatant lies. He’s so good that even though you should see through his façade, you don’t. Even when the truth is smack dab right in front of you, he’s just personable enough that you don’t want to believe it. And then you’re just plain mad.
Walter Kirn met the man who passed himself off as a Rockefeller, those Rockefellers, many years ago. Kirn, a journalist with a bit of time on his hands and a do good spirit offered to drive a crippled dog from his home in Montana to the apartment of Clark Rockefeller in New York City. As Kirn describes it, “If I’d met the dog first, I might never have met Clark.” Fate was not to be so kind. From this seemingly innocent beginning Kirn finds himself a pawn in Clark’s game. It’s many years before Kirn realizes the full implication of the strange friendship he has with Clark. With several point on references to Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels the real face of Clark Rockefeller is revealed. Don’t miss this. It’s true crime at it’s very best but sad that this good read comes at the expense of so many good people.
The Line – “He’s the villain with a thousand faces, a kind of charming, dark-side-cowboy, perennially slipping off into the sunset and reappearing at dawn in a new outfit.
The Sinker – Blood Will Out: The True Story of A Murder, A Mystery, and a Masquerade is my book group’s pick this January. Even though I knew much about the fictitious life of Clark Rockefeller, there were still surprises. OMG, he is the master of deceit. Just imagine being on the receiving end of his schemes and blatant lies. He’s so good that even though you should see through his façade, you don’t. Even when the truth is smack dab right in front of you, he’s just personable enough that you don’t want to believe it. And then you’re just plain mad.
Walter Kirn met the man who passed himself off as a Rockefeller, those Rockefellers, many years ago. Kirn, a journalist with a bit of time on his hands and a do good spirit offered to drive a crippled dog from his home in Montana to the apartment of Clark Rockefeller in New York City. As Kirn describes it, “If I’d met the dog first, I might never have met Clark.” Fate was not to be so kind. From this seemingly innocent beginning Kirn finds himself a pawn in Clark’s game. It’s many years before Kirn realizes the full implication of the strange friendship he has with Clark. With several point on references to Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels the real face of Clark Rockefeller is revealed. Don’t miss this. It’s true crime at it’s very best but sad that this good read comes at the expense of so many good people.
koreilly's review against another edition
3.0
The nicest thing I can say about this book is that when the author isn't getting in the way with his own personality it isn't uninteresting.