Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
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4,0 • 1,6 k notes
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- 11,99 $US
Description de l’éditeur
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Diaz returns after his Pulitzer finalist In the Distance with a wondrous portrait in four texts of devious financier Andrew Bevel, who survives the Wall Street crash of 1929 and becomes one of New York City's chief financial barons before dying a decade later at age 62. First there is Bonds, a novel by controversial writer Harold Vanner, which tells the story of Benjamin Rask, a character clearly based on Bevel. The novel, published shortly before Bevel's death, infuriates the magnate, particularly for its depiction of Bevel's deceased wife, Mildred, as a fragile madwoman. Bevel responds by undertaking a memoir, which only serves to highlight his own touchiness and lack of imagination. The third story-within-the-story is the most significant; in it, the reader meets Ida Partenza, daughter of an Italian anarchist in exile, who, in pursuit of her own writerly ambitions, suppresses both her own conscience and the suspicions of her suitor, Jack, to become Bevel's secretary and coconspirator in ruining Harold Vanner, as Ida concocts a counternarrative of a saintly Mildred. The reader eventually hears from Mildred directly via her journal, discovered by Ida during her research and included as a coda. The result is a kaleidoscope of capitalism run amok in the early 20th century, which also manages to deliver a biography of its irascible antihero and the many lives he disfigures during his rise to the cream of the city's crop. Grounded in history and formally ambitious, this succeeds on all fronts. Once again, Diaz makes the most of his formidable gifts.
Avis d’utilisateurs
Fascinating & Manipulative
Trust by Hernan Diaz is a complex novel that explores themes of wealth, power, and narrative through a multifaceted structure. The story revolves around Andrew Bevel, a wealthy financier, and his wife Mildred, set against the backdrop of the 1929 stock market crash. The novel is divided into four sections, each offering different perspectives: a fictional biography, an unfinished autobiography, a memoir by Ida Partenza, and Mildred’s journal. Diaz examines the mutability of capital and narrative, questioning who controls wealth and how stories are told and believed.
The concept of “fictional” money is used to explore the theme of trust by highlighting how wealth, though abstract and mutable, wields significant power and influences narratives. The novel examines how financial instruments like trusts and bonds require belief in their value, paralleling how personal stories demand trust from readers. Through characters like Andrew Bevel, who manipulates markets and narratives, Diaz illustrates the intertwining of capital and storytelling, questioning the reliability of both and revealing how wealth shapes perceptions and truths
Trust plays a crucial role in the financial dealings of the characters, particularly in the manipulation and perception of wealth. Andrew Bevel, a financier, relies on trust to maintain his financial empire, manipulating markets and narratives to ensure continued success. The novel explores how trust is both a financial instrument and a personal bond, with characters like Bevel using it to control public perception and personal relationships. The idea of money as “fictional” underscores how trust is essential for its perceived value and exchange, reflecting the broader theme of narrative control and reliability.
In the end, we have 4 versions of a story and only our gut to tell us whom to believe. Fascinating and manipulative, the author shook the ground that I stand upon.
Exceptionally good book
This book is superbly written, with multiple voices. The characters are great and the story is compelling. And, it makes ya think.
Great book
I never like 5 stars, and 4.5 is probably more accurate, but this was a wonderfully and interestingly structured as well as well written novel. I am not sure I have read a better book in recent years, which is the highest praise I can give.