Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (Unabridged)
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3.9 • 391 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE
“Buzzy and enthralling . . . A glorious novel about empires and erasures, husbands and wives, staggering fortunes and unspeakable misery . . . Fun as hell to read.” —Oprah Daily
"A genre-bending, time-skipping story about New York City’s elite in the roaring ’20s and Great Depression." —Vanity Fair
“A riveting story of class, capitalism, and greed.” —Esquire
"Exhilarating.” —New York Times
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
Hernan Diaz’s TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.
At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Trust is a complex literary novel that’s also an absolute joy to listen to. Hernán Díaz (In the Distance) constructs his story like a series of nesting dolls. It starts as a novel from the 1930s about shadowy New York financier Benjamin Rask and his emotionally fragile wife, Helen. When that book’s real-life inspiration is outraged about the way the bestseller misrepresents his wife, he begins writing a memoir of his own. Trust then takes two more big turns that are too good to spoil. Suffice to say, Díaz’s novel is about money and power and love, as well as the question of who gets to tell their own stories. Four different narrators, led by veteran Edoardo Ballerini, do a wonderful job with each new swing the story takes. This is a book that fans of writers as different as Edith Wharton and David Mitchell will enjoy and a surefire book club favorite.
Customer Reviews
Perspectivetaking
I truly loved this novel and found it brilliant. Its structure was not predictable so it took some attention to understand but once I found its rhythm, i really loved it. I was a bit confused as to why Bevel was so tightlipped about his wife. Did he not know her or was his ego so large he could not admit that he wasn’t the genius everyone thought he was? Either way, it was sad that he couldn’t describe her as anything other than a timid, meek music lover.
Herstory
The first section is told by a third person narrator. The second section is told in a memoir style. The third section is from a witness who explains this meta narrative. By the end of the book, readers are to believe the main character is the financier Andrew Bevel, but actually the story or at least the most interesting character in the story is Bevel’s wife Mildred. The first section is a fictional account of Andrew Bevel’s life story, which paints Bevel as an intense recluse who became a financial wizard swaying the market to his whim. The second section is Andrew’s story from his own memoir, written by his hired secretary, Ida. Ida Partenza was hired to write his memoir and it’s through her story that readers learn Mildred has been totally misrepresented. In the first section she was a quiet, intelligent young girl who goes mad, much like the woman in the yellow paper, or the mad wife in the attic in Jane Eyre. In her husband’s memoir she is a meek and mild philanthropist who love the arts and flowers and unfortunately falls ill and passes. Ida’s section is definitely the most interesting as she starts to research Mildred. She reads her daily schedule/calendar planner, and discover her true interests finance. Finally, Ida finds Mildred’s journal, and lo and behold Mildred was the financial wizard all along! The book ends with Mildred telling her own story, as she should! This was an incredibly slow start to fairly interesting story, certainly a meta narrative at its finest! I give it my standard 3.
Mostly boring.
I agree with many other reviewers about not understanding how this won a Pulitzer Prize. Found myself confused and mostly bored for the first half. It gets slightly interesting at Ida’s portion of the story where things finally start making sense. Then the end becomes dull again and completes the story in a disappointing way. Glad I only paid $5.00.