The Man in the Rockefeller Suit - Mark Seal

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit

By Mark Seal

  • Release Date: 2011-06-02
  • Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Score: 4
4
From 278 Ratings

Description

A real-life Talented Mr. Ripley, the unbelievable thirty-year run of a shape-shifting con man.

The story of Clark Rockefeller is a stranger-than-fiction twist on the classic American success story of the self-made man-because Clark Rockefeller was totally made up. The career con man who convincingly passed himself off as Rockefeller was born in a small village in Germany. At seventeen, obsessed with getting to America, he flew into the country on dubious student visa documents and his journey of deception began.

Over the next thirty years, boldly assuming a series of false identities, he moved up the social ladder through exclusive enclaves on both coasts-culminating in a stunning twelve-year marriage to a rising star businesswoman with a Harvard MBA who believed she'd wed a Rockefeller.

The imposter charmed his way into exclusive clubs and financial institutions-working on Wall Street, showing off an extraordinary art collection-until his marriage ended and he was arrested for kidnapping his daughter, which exposed his past of astounding deceptions as well as a connection to the bizarre disappearance of a California couple in the mid-1980s.

The story of The Man in the Rockefeller Suit is a probing and cinematic exploration of an audacious imposer-and a man determined to live the American dream by any means necessary.

Reviews

  • The Man in the Rockefeller Suit

    5
    By Iphoneray
    Good read, would like to know more on the Calif. Sit....overall good read
  • Quite a read

    5
    By wilgravatt
    Interesting that a human chameleon can dupe so many. And yes it has photos in the iBook version.
  • Man in the Rockefeller Suit

    4
    By C Godur
    Interesting read on a very complicated man. Sad enforcement about superficial people and what they go for in our country. Funny characters and unbelievable how they fell for Clark!
  • No photos

    2
    By eaoeo
    Be forewarned. The iBook edition I received had no photos, although the print version does.
  • The Man in the Rockefeller Suit

    4
    By Purple eagles
    This is going to make a great movie.Albeit the book was really a more intense version of Vanity Fair it was good but was really a narrative.No true indepthness needed more substantiveness investigation.What scares me is that ,"Are there really that many dumb people in this day and age."? Also why in our financial industry is there not more scrutiny when hiring someone.Seems to me this guy really really was lucky.Good luck to his ex wife and daughter.Hopefully her career is in tact and she can get on with life.Would have liked to know more about how she is doing.Read this is 2 days. This book should be required reading at all east coast prep schools.
  • The Man in the Rockefeller Suit

    4
    By Andrew Pik
    Well researched history of this interesting case. Easy and quick read that will keep you up past your bedtime trying to get to the end of the chapter. ASP in Houston, Texas