The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial ImposterMark Seal
Viking Adult, June 2011
ISBN: 978-0670022748
A real-life Talented Mr. Ripley, the unbelievable thirty-year run of a shape-shifting con man.
Author Mark Seal, a Vanity Fair contributing editor, traces the mysterious trail of con-man Christian Gerhartsreiter, a German immigrant who adopted the alias 'Clark Rockefeller' to swindle people in the country’s wealthiest enclaves for more than 25 years.
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter was born in 1961 in a small village in Bavaria. From early childhood he dreamed of getting out of his small village. A poor immigrant, he wanted to be educated and have a life of adventure. He knew that to pursue his dreams, he must go to America. He emigrated to the US as a young man and began using people he met along the way to create the lifestyle he so desperately desired.
Beginning in the Connecticut suburbs where he first fabricated an upper-class persona, then moving out to San Marino, California, he continued a charade as 'Christopher Chichester'. After a few years - and cons and a possible murder - in San Marino, he moved to NYC, after a short stay in Connecticut. Each time he took a new name and a new identity.
In 1993, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, now going by Clark Rockefeller, met and married a 26-year-old in her final year of Harvard Business School, and on the fast-track financially. She flourished at work while he played husband, taking control of her life and her money. They had a child who 'Clark' took care of while Sandra worked.
After about 10 years of marriage, Sandra filed for divorce and custody of the daughter. When Sandra's divorce lawyers began to look into 'Clark's' past, they found there was no 'Clark Rockefeller'. After the divorce, which Sandra essentially paid him off and took the daughter to live in London, he arranged to kidnap the girl while she was visiting in Boston.
After a nation-wide search, father and daughter were found six days after the kidnapping and the girl was returned to her mother. When captured, a thorough investigation takes place, following his crime of deceit. Intrigue, scams, and lies were the basis of Christian Gerhartsreiter's life as he took and shed identities in a perpetual reinvention of self.
The Man in the Rockefeller Suit is a terrific book. Seal has put together many missing pieces with over 200 interviews. With exhaustive research, Seal paints a captivating picture of the audacious fraud. A man who would stop at nothing for identity and fame, and by the time he admitted it, he had people convinced he was Rockefeller. A compelling and astonishing read.
MARK SEAL is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of the critically acclaimed book Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Death in Africa, about the murdered wildlife filmmaker and naturalist Joan Root. Seal was a 2010 National Magazine Award finalist for his Vanity Fair profile of Clark Rockefeller. He lives in Aspen, Colorado.
ISBN: 978-0670022748; ISBN10: 0670022748; Imprint: Viking Adult; On Sale: 6/2/2011; Format: Hardcover; Pages: 336; $26.95
