Read King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor

King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor

Paul Willetts

4.9/5 (27029 ratings)

Description:The spellbinding tale of virtuosic hustler Edgar Laplante--a Tom Ripley-meets-Jay Gatsby king of Jazz Age con artists, whose spectacular downfall came because he began to be seduced by his own lies.For the devilishly handsome erstwhile vaudeville singer Edgar Laplante, the summer of 1923 was a prelude to one of the twentieth-century's most extraordinary adventures--an adventure that would require all his theatrical flair to deliver what would become the most demanding performance of his life. Aided by buckskins and a feathered headdress, Laplante reinvented himself as Chief White Elk: war hero, sports star, civil rights campaigner, Cherokee nation leader--and total fraud.Under the pretense of recruiting for the military and selling government bonds, Laplante embarks upon a lucrative tour of the United States that attracts enormous crowds, picking up a naive Native American wife along the way to lend a further air of authenticity. Soon Laplante decamps to London to appeal to King George V on behalf of the Cherokee. By 1923 he's absconded to Paris, frequenting its decadent cabarets and rubbing elbows with the likes of James Joyce and Pablo Picasso.As he moves down to the Riviera, he begins to set his sights on an even bigger mark: a prodigiously rich and glamorous Austrian countess. Laplante takes her as his lover and main benefactor. He cons her out of the equivalent of $42 million in today's currency. The countess bankrolls a lavish tour of Italy, where Benito Mussolini's fascist regime treats him like a visiting monarch. In every city, he tosses crisp banknotes from the window of their limousine to the fans who lay siege to his hotel. He's now a worldwide celebrity, and all that adulation (plus a spiraling drug problem) has deluded him into believe that he really is a Cherokee chief. The noose begins to tighten, as the countess's family intercedes... King Con is a sumptuous recreation of this incomparably bizarre story. Never previously told in its entirety, Laplante's tale proves that truth really is stranger than fiction.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor. To get started finding King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: —

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: —

Release: —

ISBN: 0451495810

Description: The spellbinding tale of virtuosic hustler Edgar Laplante--a Tom Ripley-meets-Jay Gatsby king of Jazz Age con artists, whose spectacular downfall came because he began to be seduced by his own lies.For the devilishly handsome erstwhile vaudeville singer Edgar Laplante, the summer of 1923 was a prelude to one of the twentieth-century's most extraordinary adventures--an adventure that would require all his theatrical flair to deliver what would become the most demanding performance of his life. Aided by buckskins and a feathered headdress, Laplante reinvented himself as Chief White Elk: war hero, sports star, civil rights campaigner, Cherokee nation leader--and total fraud.Under the pretense of recruiting for the military and selling government bonds, Laplante embarks upon a lucrative tour of the United States that attracts enormous crowds, picking up a naive Native American wife along the way to lend a further air of authenticity. Soon Laplante decamps to London to appeal to King George V on behalf of the Cherokee. By 1923 he's absconded to Paris, frequenting its decadent cabarets and rubbing elbows with the likes of James Joyce and Pablo Picasso.As he moves down to the Riviera, he begins to set his sights on an even bigger mark: a prodigiously rich and glamorous Austrian countess. Laplante takes her as his lover and main benefactor. He cons her out of the equivalent of $42 million in today's currency. The countess bankrolls a lavish tour of Italy, where Benito Mussolini's fascist regime treats him like a visiting monarch. In every city, he tosses crisp banknotes from the window of their limousine to the fans who lay siege to his hotel. He's now a worldwide celebrity, and all that adulation (plus a spiraling drug problem) has deluded him into believe that he really is a Cherokee chief. The noose begins to tighten, as the countess's family intercedes... King Con is a sumptuous recreation of this incomparably bizarre story. Never previously told in its entirety, Laplante's tale proves that truth really is stranger than fiction.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor. To get started finding King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Special Offer | $0.00

Special Offer! | $0.00

King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor

King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor

More Books

Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms: The Spyhunter, the Fashion Designer & the Man From Moscow

Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms: The Spyhunter, the Fashion Designer & the Man From Moscow

Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia : The Strange Lives of Julian MacLaren-Ross

Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia : The Strange Lives of Julian MacLaren-Ross

LES MISERABLES - 2 RECORD SET - vinyl lps. ORIGINAL LONDON CAST ALBUM - BASED ON THE NOVEL BY VICTOR HUGO - CAST: COLM WILKINSON - ROGER ALLAM - DAVE WILLETTS, PAUL, CLIVE CARTER, AND OTHERS.

LES MISERABLES - 2 RECORD SET - vinyl lps. ORIGINAL LONDON CAST ALBUM - BASED ON THE NOVEL BY VICTOR HUGO - CAST: COLM WILKINSON - ROGER ALLAM - DAVE WILLETTS, PAUL, CLIVE CARTER, AND OTHERS.

Members Only: The Life and Times of Paul Raymond

Members Only: The Life and Times of Paul Raymond

Teenage Flicks: Memories of the Sub-beautiful Game by Paul Willetts (2008-11-02)

Teenage Flicks: Memories of the Sub-beautiful Game by Paul Willetts (2008-11-02)

Teenage Flicks

Teenage Flicks

Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia: The Bizarre Life of Julian Maclaren-Ross by Paul Willetts (2005-12-05)

Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia: The Bizarre Life of Julian Maclaren-Ross by Paul Willetts (2005-12-05)

North Soho 999: A True Story of Gangs and Gun-Crime in 1940s London by Willetts, Paul (December 1, 2007) Paperback 0

North Soho 999: A True Story of Gangs and Gun-Crime in 1940s London by Willetts, Paul (December 1, 2007) Paperback 0

[Teenage Flicks] [By: Willetts, Paul] [February, 2008]

[Teenage Flicks] [By: Willetts, Paul] [February, 2008]