The Irresistible Con: The Bizarre Life of a Fraudulent Genius - Softcover

Wheen, Francis

3.72

54 ratings by Goodreads

9781904095743: The Irresistible Con: The Bizarre Life of a Fraudulent Genius

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1904095747 ISBN 13: 9781904095743

Publisher: Short Books, 2004

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His names were crazy enough—Baron Hajdu, Carl Rodgers, Mr. Carl, Michael Karoly. And his jobs too—receptionist, hypnotherapist, businessman, rentier, journalist, and sex worker. But he was always careful to cover his tracks, so no-one suspected a thing when in 1971 a curious new figure appeared on the London academic scene. Her name was Charlotte Bach, and she was a broad-shouldered mammoth of a woman, with a deep voice and a heavy Central European accent. She was a former lecturer at the University of Budapest, and had a new theory of sex and evolution which was soon being heralded as one of the greatest intellectual advances of the 20th century.

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From Publishers Weekly:

A widowed female academic whose outr� theories on such topics as mathematical logic and shamanistic ecstasies earned her comparisons to Hegel and even Einstein, Charlotte M. Bach was revealed upon her death in 1981 to be, not only a man, but also the last in a series of gleefully eccentric personae created by one Karoly Hajdu. Born in Hungary in 1920, Hajdu survived both the Nazi and Soviet occupations before escaping to England, where he reinvented himself as a smooth-talking aristocrat and began fleecing Londoners with a series of outrageous scams. Told with a dry theatricality by English bestselling author Wheen (How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World), this sublimely funny biography of the con man goes beyond sensation to provide a thoughtful account of the struggle of a displaced person to construct an identity. Drawing from Bach's extensive literary remains, the brief but thoroughly documented narrative quotes liberally from autobiographical writings by both the professor and her previous persona Michael B. Karoly, a published—and, of course, unlicensed—psychologist. The energy of the chronicle never flags, as its errant subject hoodwinks apartment-hunters, divorc�es and government officials; each page is more amusing and unbelievable than the one before. If the ending disappoints, it is only because, at 61, Hajdu/Karoly/Bach finally ran out of steam. 9 color and 4 b&w photos. (Nov. 15)
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Review:

“A brief history, sad and dismal, of a dishonest cross–dresser who achieved a bit of fleeting notoriety.” -- Kirkus Reviews

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