Trust

Boiling the plot down to the simplest terms, this is the story of a fabulously successful New York financier, Andrew Bevel, at the turn of the century: his ancestors, his childhood and extraordinary marriage, his rising prestige and wealth, his role in exploiting (manipulating?) the roiling financial markets of the 1920s, his eccentricities, his legacy. Along the way, Diaz explores the relationship between capitalism, civic responsibility, and self-interest (echoes of Gordon Gekko's "greed is good"); the complicated forms of co-dependence that bind parents and children, husbands and wives; and - most of all - the many ways that wealth and power can be used to distort truth.

But this summary scarcely does justice to the deceptively show more twisty tale that is reworked - by the time the book is over - three times over. The first section, "Bonds," recounts the tale from the perspective of a novelist who has transformed the outlines of Bevel's life into a critically acclaimed novelization. The second section, "My Life," is composed of excerpts from Bevel's never-completed autobiography. The third section "A Memoir, Remembered," is recounted by Bevel's ghostwriter - it's in this section that you begin to appreciate the web that Diaz has been subtly weaving. Then in the fourth/last section, "Futures" - composed of excerpts from the diary of the Bevel's extraordinary wife - Diaz pulls the rug out entirely, challenging readers to reassess all the simple/easy/convenient assumptions they've spent the prior 300 pages forming.

Diaz is a gloriously gifted storyteller. His characters are deeply complex and original, his prose eloquent and smart, his insights into human nature grippingly authentic. This is one of the most original works I've read in a long time. "Trust" me - you won't regret the time you spend on this engrossing, inventive, highly human tale of pride, perspective, and power. show less

I read In the Distance earlier in the year. This was his debut (2017) and it was impressive. Lo and behold, his second novel Trust came out in May and I knew I wanted to read it. Now, I don’t have a head for finance, other than balancing our checkbook and taking care of some minor investments, so I am surprised how much I loved his novel about the financial world and the people that sit at the top of it. This is due to this author’s mighty storytelling and craftsmanship. For a 400-hundred-page book, the pages flew.
This is a tough novel to describe, without spoiling the wonderful story structure that Diaz has built here. It begins with Benjamin Rask, following his rise in the financial world, in the 1920s, to become a Wall Street show more Tycoon. Cool and a bit ruthless. This is presented as a novel in a novel, called “Bonds”. Okay, what follows will have to be up for the reader to discover and it is brilliant. The title is perfect because “Trust” permeates nearly every page, in it’s many different forms. My favorite book of the year. show less

As other reviewers have noted, "Trust" is a story told in four stages. It moves from a fictional account of a financier's rise to prominence to an attempted autobiography by the man himself to a brief memoir by his amanuensis during this project — the daughter of an Italian typesetter with anarchist political tendencies — to the diary of the financier's wife, who turns out to play a very different role in this story than the reader had previously been lead to believe. You could also say, though, that "Trust" is a biography of financial capital itself, the invisible glue that holds the economic system we live under together and affects us all, whether we can feel its effects or not. Diaz's writing is exacting and meticulous show more throughout much of this book, so if it doesn't really sound like a barrel of fun, well, there's a reason for that.

Even though a Marxist does, as I've mentioned, show up in this book, he's portrayed as an impulsive, emotional dreamer. He's also broke: the wheels of history obviously aren't turning the way he thought they would. Meanwhile, the power and movement of money is felt throughout the text, from his run-down Italian neighborhood to the skyscrapers popping up all over Manhattan. "Trust" is a postmodern novel in a lot of different ways. Much of it has that curious, impersonal, detached air that seems to be a common feature of these novels. That is, until, the last section in which a character that had once merely been written about finally gets to say her peace, if only in writing, and this in a novel that's already shown us several unreliable narrators. I have to say that Diaz sticks the landing beautifully: the book takes on a human dimension that it had previously lacked, and, by the last pages, I was genuinely moved. But it took a while to get there, and there was still a part of me that wanted to shake the author's hand and say, "that was a neat trick," which isn't I suppose much of a recommendation.

And perhaps all of this points to a larger point about art and commerce. I think that "Braveheart" is a terrible movie, and I'm nobody's ultra-nationalist, but when Mel Gibson yelled "Freedom" with his face all painted up, well, that was pretty memorable. By contrast, Leonardo DiCaprio's heartfelt speech to Congress about why transatlantic air routes should be open to multiple competing characters falls flat, at least on an emotional level. I'm no socialist, but I'll readily admit that capitalism seems to lack a heroic character, and I certainly felt that absence while reading "Trust." This isn't to say that it's a bad book: it's well-written, well-constructed, subtle and clever. But only in the last few pages was I able to locate a beating heart within the text, and I imagine that some readers may not have enough patience to do so, or feel disappointed even at the book's end. Recommended, but only if Ben Marcus and Thomas Pynchon happen to be your personal heroes. show less

Four and a half stars rounded up because the half-star I'd have taken off was more related to a format mismatch than the writing or performance itself.

I REALLY liked this, it was a heck of a ride. It's hard to give a full review without revealing things that are best encountered in context - not just story spoilers, but the way in which the story is told and how you figure out what each piece of the book has to do with the others. Each section was well-written for what it was; I genuinely enjoyed the opening novel(la), and then the deeper dives into the story definitely kept me reading - er, listening.

But this wasn't just a literary puzzle; it was also a (usually subtle) commentary on greed and the way capitalism can be exploited; about show more how our perspective of events is always affected by the intentions and skill of the people controlling the narrative; about the nature of capitalism and money as a concept; about how hard it can be to find reality when multiple entities want us to believe different things; about how what we perceive because of all of the above can eventually *become* -- for better or worse (usually worse) -- our reality, our memories, ourselves.

All that, and each individual story-within-the-story was interesting in and of itself, with main and side characters who will stay with me. Stay through the second section, it makes much more sense as you go.

I listened to the audiobook while commuting, and while each narrator was excellent, I did find myself wanting to see physical pages because I have a feeling there were some elements that couldn't be conveyed aloud; also, there were sections of journal that would have been better on paper, I think. show less

The first thing that strikes you about Trust, Hernan Diaz’ intriguing examination of the power of wealth to shape and distort memories, is its inventive structure. The story unfurls through four nested books-within-the-book, starting with a popular novel from the 1930s about a fictionalized financier and his talented but reclusive wife who gained much of their riches by exploiting the tumultuous economic conditions in the years leading up to the stock market crash of October 1929. This is followed by a fragmented, self-serving memoir by Andrew Bevel, the real-life financier on whom the first story was based, that tries to “correct” the record and undo the damage to his professional reputation. This, in turn, evokes the written show more remembrances of Ida Partenza, the woman who was hired by Bevel to serve as his personal secretary and ghost writer. Finally, through the discovery decades later of the journal of Mildred Bevel, the financier’s wife, the last chapter of the tale is ultimately revealed.

I found this book to be entertaining and quite interesting, both for its style as well as its substance. Of course, whether you like the sort of meta-fictional playfulness exhibited by the novel’s structure might depend on how traditional you like the stories you read to be. While there are certainly plenty examples of post-modern literary excesses, some of my favorite recent reading experiences have experimented with composition to great effect, including Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. Whether Diaz’ work rises to the same level of renown as those novels remains to be seen, but it is clear that Trust offers an intricate and well-conceived story in which all of the puzzle pieces fit quite nicely, even as the main plot line bounces back and forth through the years.

It might be easy to understate the quality of story itself for all the stylistic sleight-of-hand the author employs, but this would be a mistake. Diaz demonstrates a nice knack for combining historical fiction of the Jazz Age and Great Depression eras with the mystery of just how the Bevels accumulated their wealth in the first place. Although the resolution of the mystery is not particularly surprising—it is signaled well in advance of the final nested section—the entire story is engaging and compelling, particularly when Ida’s memories take center stage. I especially enjoyed the realistic depictions of how capital markets functioned in the 1920s and 30s and how easy it was to manipulate them. Indeed, one of the unifying themes in the novel is the many ways in which powerful men and women seek to bend the truth for either their personal gain or to shape the narrative of their legacies. A striking irony of the book’s title is that none of the narrators is totally reliable, and the reader is left wondering just who he or she can actually trust. This is a thought-provoking book and one that I can highly recommend. show less

Oh, what a tangled Gilded Age web is woven here! The book includes four novels (or three novels and one lame attempt), with the essential connection between #1 and #2 frustratingly non-obvious until it comes into focus. #1, by fiction writer Harold Vanner, is a non--authorized fictional biography misrepresenting the source of financier Andrew Bevel's successful manipulation of Wall St during the Crash, and also includes the premise of wife Mildred’s horrifying death in Switzerland by primitive electro-shock treatment ordered by her husband. #2 is Bevel’s lame attempt to redeem the virtue of Mildred, but he gives up and hires ghostwriter Ida Partenza to create #3. Ida is the daughter of a struggling anarchist Italian immigrant show more father, whom she idolizes until she realizes how his political beliefs limit them to a life of abject penury. The unnamed father is one of the strongest characters, admirable in his steadfast adherence to his politics but unconscious of his mistreatment of, dependence upon, and complete lack of appreciation for Ida. This theme that carries through the entire plot and is also manifested in the Bevel family by Andrew, the Gilded Age husband and by Mildred’s mother, a manipulator dependent on wealthy friends to marry off her daughter and keep herself socially prominent. Book #4, finally, holds the truth.

This is a difficult and ultimately rewarding tale, worthy of a second reading and of the Booker Prize awarded the novel in 2022.

Quotes: "Most men smoked cigars so they could talk to other men."

"God is the most uninteresting answer to the most interesting questions." show less

I love a novel of elisions, there's a feeling of recognition here for my era of reading second world literature. This is an insightful story about erasure and realignment, where the context is always key.
I see a number of reviews that wanted the book to be about something else, or didn't connect to what they considered the story of the main character, who I certainly don't see as the center of this work at all. I have sympathy, I've also read books that I wanted to be something else. This one I find stunning for what it is.