Blood Will Out The True Story of a Murder a Mystery & a Masquerade

A riveting blend of true crime and memoir, Blood Will Out recounts Kirn's unsuspecting friendship with serial con man and brutal murderer Clark Rockefeller. Sensational storyline aside, what makes this book a standout is Kirn's exploration of why he was drawn into Rockefeller's world and how we all can be susceptible to malign fantasy.   Recommended By Rhianna W., Powells.com

In the summer of 1998, Walter Kirn--then an aspiring novelist struggling with impending fatherhood and a dissolving marriage--set out on a peculiar, fateful errand: to personally deliver a crippled hunting dog from his home in Montana to the New York apartment of one Clark Rockefeller, a secretive young banker and art collector who had adopted the dog over the Internet. Thus began a fifteen-year relationship that drew Kirn deep into the fun-house world of an outlandish, eccentric son of privilege who ultimately would be unmasked as a brazen serial impostor, child kidnapper, and brutal murderer.

"[A] tight, gripping book...This bit of noir, from Mr. Kirn about Clark Rockefeller, is just right." Janet Maslin

"In this smart, real-life psychological thriller, the fake Rockefeller is a zombie Gatsby and Kirn the post-apocalyptic Fitzgerald." Nina Burleigh New York Times Book Review

"A gripping performance!" Nina Burleigh The New York Times Book Review

"Has the power and insight and raw energy of an instant classic." Edmund White

"There is no finer guide to the American berserk than Walter Kirn." Amy Hempel

"The parallels with Patricia Highsmith's are not lost on Kirn, who spends as much time trying to understand how he and others fell under Gerhartstreiter's spell as he does relating the primary tale of the criminal himself. Kirn's candor, ear for dialogue, and crisp prose make for a masterful true crime narrative that is impossible to put down. The book deserves to become a classic." Gary Shteyngart

"Kirn bravely lays bare his own vanities and follies in this heart-pounding true tale; he examines the hold of fiction on the human imagination--how we live for it and occasionally die for it, too." Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"The story of is one of cosmic ironies and jaw-dropping reversals... What makes so absorbing is its teller more than its subject. Kirn's persona is captivating--funny, pissed off, highly literate, and self-searching. He's also an elegant, classic writer... Add the highly readable, intricately told to the list of great books about the dizzying tensions of the writing life and the maddening difficulty of getting at the truth." Judith Newman More Magazine

"[A] fascinating account of the imposter he considered his friend for 10 years... is an exploration of a hoaxer from the point of view of a mark, and of a relationship based on interlocking deceptions and self-deceptions. The result is a moral tale about the dangers of social climbing on a rickety ladder--for both those trying to scramble up the rungs and those trying to hold it steady below." Amity Gaige Slate

"A mélange of memoir, stranger-than-fiction crime reporting and cultural critique. The literary markers run the gamut from James Ellroy's , and Fyodor Doestoevsky's to Patricia Highsmith's trilogy and . Kirn's self-lacerating meditations on class, art, vanity, ambition, betrayal and delusion elevate the material beyond its pulpy core... Kirn's belated acceptance of reality provides the most fascinating and frustrating element of this engaging, self-flagellating memoir." Heller McAlpin The Washington Post

"One of the most honest, compelling and strangest books about the relationship between a writer and his subject ever penned by an American scribe-- Each new revelation comes subtly, and each adds to the pathetic and creepy portrait of Clark Rockefeller as a vacuous manipulator-- The ending of is at once deeply ambiguous and deeply satisfying. By then, Kirn has looked into the eyes of a cruel, empty man--and learned a lot about himself in the process." Laura Miller Salon.com

"Kirn's account of his friendship with this strange and terrible man cuts through the frippery of Gerhartsreiter's outrageous affectations to reveal the Lovecraftian nightmare hiding beneath the J. Press blazer. is a wise, deeply frightening, and potentially sleep-disrupting read... In the end, Kirn manages to transform his personal account of one of this century's most aberrant personalities into a vessel bearing universal truths about narrative, evil, and the American Dream itself." Hector Tobar Los Angeles Times

"Absorbing... If there's anything rarer than a con man with Clark's gift for the game, it's a writer of Kirn's quicksilver accomplishment... To have someone of Kirn's ability write about the case from the inside promises exceptional insight into the way such tricksters operate and the even greater enigma of what motivates them." Eugenia Williamson Boston Globe

"Engrossing... A haunting, pained and terrifically engaging self-interrogation." Hector Tobar Los Angeles Times

"A nod to a different canon of con men and tricksters: the protagonist of Melville's , the prep-school clones of Leopold and Loeb of Hitchcock's , and Highsmith's highbrow hucksters--all crossed with the shadows of film noir." Charles Finch Chicago Tribune

A Top 10 Best Book of Winter 2014 "Equals Truman Capote's as a nonfiction novel of crime."--Gerald Bartell,

Walter Kirn is the author of Thumbsucker and Up in the Air, both made into major films. His work has appeared in GQ, New York, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine.