Hernan Diaz

Fiction 2023/ 416 pages

Goodness, this is a challenging book.  Goodreads readers gave it a 3.84 ... quite low. Mixed reviews, for certain.  I loved Diaz' writing.  I thought it was eloquent and it pulled me in and through this unusual novel.

Trust is written as four novellas, or short stories.  The topic is a brilliant financier in the early 20th century, and his management of money before and during the Great Depression.  Andrew Bevel is our financier, though he is named Benjamin Trask in the first section.  All four sections are also an interesting commentary on economics, government, and big business.

It takes a lot to make sense of the interconnections among the four sections, but I will give the structure here to help you read this book.  The first section, a novel, is titled Bonds and it is allegedly a novel that Harold Vanner has written about Andrew Bevel, his life, his financial brilliance, and his quiet, tragic wife, Mildred (renamed Helen in the Vanner novel).

The second section, a memoir, is My Life, which is Bevel's telling of his life story.  This section consists of many placeholders ... where you read that he is reminding himself to cover this topic next, or to expand on that topic later.  Sentences like, "Show his pioneering spirit" and "Short, dignified account of Mildred's rapid deterioration" are frequent.  Bevel's short section is disjointed and poorly written.  I believe this was intentional, as it demonstrates that a financial and math wizard may not have any skills in writing (and, hence, communicating on any scale).

In the third and longest section, A Memoir, Remembered, we read about a young woman who is hired to ghostwrite Bevel's autobiography; both to tell his true story and as a rebuttal to what was written about him and his wife in the novel Bonds. We discover that Bevel is quite disconnected from his life and his inner workings and wants his ghostwriter to write much that is not actually true.  Ida finds herself confused and bewildered as she attempts to draft this book from Bevel's ramblings.

The final section, Futures, is excerpts from Bevel's wife's journal.

Trust is ingeniously constructed.  It is a novel about money, power, brilliance, intimacy, perception, and introversion. It is a story that immerses you, and that also provides a literary puzzle, both in how it is written, and what the truth is in Bevel's life.  Its unconventionality will disrupt your understanding of what a "novel" is.  This is a novel that requires you to think.  Nothing about it is light or fluffy.  If you are ready to engage yourself in a thoughtful analysis of economics, relationships (with self and others), and the role of literature, I suggest you read it.

I am SO looking forward to meeting my friend René for our traditional repast of guacamole made at our table and margaritas with salt rims.  René suggested this book to me.  I keep wondering what she will say about it.

May 2024