doppelgänger

I’ve recently been reading ‘The Man in the Rockefeller Suit’ by Mark Seal after having finished “Blood will Out” by Walter Kirn. The subject of both of these books is a serial imposter, con-man and murderer who called himself, variously, Chris Chichester, Chris Crow and Clark Rockefeller. His real name is Christian Gehartsreiter and he is originally from a small town in Bavaria, Germany.

The story is fascinating, but Gehartsreiter is obviously a deeply disturbed narcissist who lies compulsively, even when everyone else knows the truth. Maybe he is the consummate real world doppelganger. Maybe he was such a convincing con-man because he actually believes the con. The most interesting part of the story is no one other than Gehartsreiter really knows what his motivations in spending his life impersonating rich people beyond the obvious (wealth and fame). His need to pretend he was someone else seems compulsive.

There’s a fantastic horror story lurking in here — perhaps a kind of diseased monster that resembles a human so closely that no one can tell the difference — not even the monster itself?