To Become a Rich American

About the Book

      This novel is the story of a European immigrant woman, very charming and attractive to
men, attempting to become a rich American. It is also the story of Rick Stevens’ search, despite
his sexual hang-ups, for the ideal wife.
      Kert von Fielding was in her mid thirties when she made her first voyage aboard the MS
Gripsholm, sailing from Helsinki, Finland, to New York City.
      Kert had majored in languages at Helsinki University where she earned both a B.A. and an
M.A., and had later worked as a translator. She knew five langages—Finish, Swedish, English,
French, and German. She hoped someday to obtain translating work in New York City.
      But this first time in the states, she visited her cousins in Salem on the Lake, a small town
in Ohio on the banks of Lake Erie. While there, she made the acquaintance of Mart Appleby,
ten years her junior, and the son of the highly esteemed and supposedly wealthy Municipal
Court Judge of the town—Calvin W. Appleby II. Their friendship, during the summer of 1957,
ripened into an intense love affair, involving a lot of sex. She fell madly in love with Mart
Appleby and thought he loved her in return. She was mistaken, but she kept sending him love
letters after he went to the West Virginia Institute of Technology where he was employed as a
psychology/sociology assistant professor.
      Mart did not answer any of Kert’s letters. Then, failing at this affair, she turned to his older half-
brother,Rick Stevens, who was closer to her age, five years her junior. Rick was interested but wary.
She discussed with him her plan to become an American citizen by marrying an American.
      Rick, a new high school science teacher, was conservative and not nearly as daring as his
younger half-brother Mart. Kert definitely preferred Mart as a mate instead of Rick. But she’d
marry Rick as a means to an end—obtaining her citizenship—and then leave. She figured she
could hide in New York City.
      When her VISA expired she returned to Helsinki, Finland. While there she wrote
numerous letters to Rick, finally writing lovey-dovey type letters. She told him she would
return to visit.
      She returned to New York City the next year aboard the MS Gripsholm. During the
seven-day passage she had a shipboard romance with a handsome and congenial man in his
mid thirties, Chad Power, an assistant professor of English at Hunter College in NYC and
the son of a multimillionaire.
      Without giving away any more of the story, suffice it to say that Kert, using sex and her feminine
wiles and machinations, managed to be married to two handsome virile men at the same time,
without either of them being aware of her duplicity, and to obtain her citizenship twice.
      Did Kert ever become rich? You will need to read the book to find out. And, please don’t skip around.

About the Author