Flim-Flam Man
A True Family History
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- ¥1,700
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- ¥1,700
発行者による作品情報
Major motion picture Flag Day starring Sean Penn and his daughter Dylan Penn is based on this father-daughter story of a charming criminal—told by the daughter who loved him.
One frosty winter morning in 1995, Jennifer Vogel opened the newspaper and read that her father had gone on the run. John Vogel, fifty-two, had been arrested for single-handedly counterfeiting nearly $20 million in U.S. currency—the fourth-largest sum ever seized by federal agents—and then released pending trial. Though Jennifer hadn't spoken to her father in more than four years, the police suspected he might turn up at her Minneapolis apartment. She examined the shadows outside her building, thought she spotted him at the grocery store and the bus stop. He had simply vanished.
Framed around the six months her father eluded authorities, Jennifer's memoir documents the police chase—stakeouts, lie detector tests, even a segment on Unsolved Mysteries—and vividly chronicles her tumultuous childhood while examining her father's legacy. A lifelong criminal who robbed banks, burned down buildings, scammed investors, and even plotted murder, John Vogel was also a hapless dreamer who wrote a novel, baked lemon meringue pies, and took his ten-year-old daughter to see Rocky in an empty theater on Christmas Eve. When it came time to pass his counterfeit bills, he spent them at Wal-Mart for political reasons.
Culling from memories, photo albums, public documents, and interviews with the handful of people who knew the real John Vogel, this is an intimate and intensely moving psychological portrait of a charismatic, larger-than-life figure—as told by the daughter who nearly followed in his footsteps.
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Armed robber, arsonist, counterfeiter words that describe a hardened criminal or dear old dad? In Vogel's case, both. The author traces the criminal career of her father, John Vogel, through her own relationship with him. As the favorite of three children, she is able to gain special access to the inner workings of her father's dangerous life as well as glean his intense affection. A kid growing up in the 1970s, Vogel realizes her father has a penchant for the finer things in life, but lacks the access or the wherewithal to achieve his goals. "Dad had never been interested in the slow, dutiful mechanics of becoming successful only in the serene, wrapped-in-cashmere end result. The way he saw it, you were either a garbage collector or a CEO. He was too impatient." John's impatience manifests itself in different get-rich-quick schemes, pie-in-the-sky inventions and plans that never quite pay off. His drinking and drug use intensify over the years of disappointment, contributing further to his despair. Yet he remains devoted to his daughter, imparting to her his sense of sentimentality. Vogel suffers her own bumps in the road as a teenager, but unlike her father, she's able to pull herself back on track, completing college and becoming a journalist (she later finds work as an investigative reporter in Minneapolis). Her heartbreaking memoir is an attempt to better understand John Vogel, a classical music loving convicted felon, adoring father and bank robber. She tells a powerful story while investigating their complex relationship, writing with empathy and without excuses.
