Trust: the dazzling twisty story of power, greed and love that begins in 1920s New York

I was attracted to this book by the promise of an intriguing story told in an unusual structure. We are told that there are "competing" versions of events which will challenge the concept of an unreliable narrator. At least three of these accounts will be untrue or maybe even all of them.The book was first published in 2022. It has 402 pages split into 4 parts - each with a separate chapters structure that promises complexity.At first glance the book seems to be 4 novellas linked together but it is so much more than that.I adored the style of writing from the first page. The vocabulary is wide ranging and the sentences are often lyrical - I found myself often slowing down to read in order to savour the writing.The descriptions are gorgeous and I loved that the author took time to explore contrasts in all areas - nature and emotions are two obvious examples.Benjamin Rask is the main subject for the first part - I was completely invested in him and was enjoying his journey so felt quite disturbed when his story came to an abrupt end and the author moved onto the second part.Several times I thought I was starting to understand the connections/structure/message but the author was just playing with me and there are plenty of complications added to catch me off guard. The changes of style and narrator were expected but the changes in structure were a surprise.I have a huge admiration for the planning of this novel and I found myself with no other option than to keep engaged.After reading Andrew's account I knew there was more to come but, again, was caught by surprise with the way that the plot turned.The title is Trust but I think the novel is more about money and the fictional concepts created within the world of finance.Herman Diaz explores how true stories can be fictionalised and the impact that then has on the real people. Of course, here the "novel" inside is based on the author's own fictional creation - this adds extra layers and allows for a deep analysis

I don’t usually enjoy a book about a book but this was good and had moments of brilliance worthy of the prize.Some parts were an endless struggle however I proudly finished it.

This book is a bit disjointed. The first part ends abruptly and it took a while to realise that the character in that part was a character in a book, ie a book within a book. In the second part the person on whom the character in the book is based is making notes about a book in which he wants to portray his wife as a paragon of virtue. The third part is about the secretary taking notes and amending them for the book. The last part is based on the diaries of the financier's wife which reveals that she is the real power behind his success. It's interesting but disappointing that the initial chararcter turns out to be a fictional character of another character in the book.

I can’t see why this book was long listed for the Booker Prize in 2022 or how on earth it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023. It seems a disjointed, rambling and confusing book about money, power and relationships.But that is a lie – a trick - a bit like Hernan Diaz in this book. On the contrary I think ‘Trust’ is a dazzling cut-diamond of a book. Unlike many novels with a beginning, middle and an end, Trust is constructed like a Russian Matryoshka doll where once the smallest doll – the ‘Futures’ section of the book – is revealed all our questions are answered and we can only sit back and wonder at Diaz’s deft sleight of hand. The author uses four different genres: first is the novel within the novel, then the manuscript, followed by the memoir and finally, the diary.From the first Diaz lulls the reader into a false sense of security. “Bonds” a novel within a novel, written by Harold Vanner in a traditional style, using the third person, lacking in dialogue, tells the story of successful investor Benjamin Rask and his wife in their New York Mansion. Helen Rask was an excellent mathematician with no acceptable outlet in a patriarchal society for her brilliance. Through her philanthropy and sponsorship of artists and musicians, this otherwise reserved woman creates a social bubble in which she feels comfortable and achieves great success. The loss of this richly cultural life hit her hard after the Depression when people blamed her husband for manipulating the markets and making money from other people’s misfortune. Her descent into mental illness was swift. An uppity wife would often find herself despatched to a clinic for experimental treatment and Helen’s fate was not a one-off. The reader learns later that the fictional author, Harold Vanner, had been entirely wrong about Helen aka Mildred. He may have changed the names of the two main protagonists but he was subsequently destroyed by the “real-life” Andrew Bevel because the story was clearly about the Bevels. How shocked Vanner would have been to learn that Mildred Bevel, the de facto victim was actually the brains behind Andrew Bevel’s success. He would have been horrified that he had lost his literary livelihood for such a monumental lie – no one would have suspected that the ‘angel in the Bevel house’, Mildred Bevel, had been capable of such Machiavellian scheming and, let’s face it, shocking brilliance!‘My Life’, the manuscript of Andrew Bevel’s autobiography, is written in the first person but the writing is more stilted, less fluent than Vanner’s novel and is peppered with copious author’s notes for further research. It eventually stutters to an unresolved end, much as Bevel’s life ended, - suddenly. Bevel employed an inexperienced secretary, Ida Partenza, to not only type up the book but also invent incidents in the life of his late wife – a woman Ida had never met. Today we would say that Ida was a ghost writer, of sorts. The interviews between her and Bevel gave her a chance to develop her obvious talent for creative writing. She had already created a false biography for herself along with a new name. This was a game she would be able to play with inexperienced enthusiasm. With her boss as the only source, writing Mildred’s truth was nigh on impossible. For example on page 286 Bevel instructed Ida as follows:“We wouldn’t want anyone to believe she was arrogant or affected. Keep it simple. Make her love of the arts approachable for the common reader”. That Mildred had sponsored and enjoyed innovative modern classical music was only one of the truths that needed to be buried. Ida realised that the Mildred she was writing about was very different from the one who had decorated her bedroom with minimalist furniture. Ida had even inserted interests and events from her own life into Mildred’s to pad out the text, so she was well aware of the lies contained within its pages.This book is set in the past but Diaz is a contemporary writer. “Trust” may well be a metaphor for the modern world – awash with lies and deepfake news. If he were alive today Andrew Bevel would no doubt have used AI, Chat GPT to write his book and social media to circulate lies about Harold Venner. For example, look at the vitriol addressed to J K Rowling.The more I think about it, the more Bevel’s pride in being able to bend and align reality so that the adjustment looks like truth, the more I read commentary about the present Age. Ida acknowledges in later life (her memoir section written in italics) that she had also been manipulated by him, that money equals power and that power is not always wielded by the most ethical people. Her naivete began to fall away with the realisation that Jack had been spying on her and her father had stolen pages from her bin. She sensed a genuine mystery around the Bevels and her love of crime novels whetted her appetite for finding out the answer to the puzzle of who Mildred really was. However, she conversely admitted that working for Bevel had set her on a solid career path, paid her a good salary, and provided her with independence and a roof over her head as well as paying for her father’s accommodation.Ida Partenza had been regularly subjected to her father’s political rantings and preoccupations until she left home. He even told her that being a Secretary was a demeaning occupation, which promised independence but was actually “another knot in the millenary subjection of women to the rule of men”, failing to recognise the hypocrisy of his words. He would eventually live alone in unhygienic squalor rather than lift a hand to do anything about it. Despite grudgingly admitting that secretarial work was work - and he admired anyone who worked - he did not seem to understand that cooking, laundry, and cleaning was house ‘work’.Ida attempted to make sense of the Bevels by writing a memoir but it was only when she discovered the hidden diary that she discovered Mildred’s truth. Mildred describes her husband, Andrew, as ‘stoically sulky’, which is not surprising as he was constantly jealous of her superior skills in successfully predicting the stock market’s movements while taking all the credit for himself. This was a dark secret Andrew Bevel was determined to take to his grave. On the other hand, Mildred felt guilty that her financial dexterity had financially ruined people. In another extract she writes: “I don’t believe in magic, but the viciousness of cancer after the crash didn’t feel like a coincidence.”In this book financial trust, trust between husband and wife or parents and children is often misplaced. Women are silenced. The men in ‘Trust’ don’t come out of it looking very good. Clearly, this book is as much about the imposed restrictive experience of being a woman as it is about making money. Living in the twenty-first century, as we do, when some people struggle to find words to describe what a woman actually is, it is a salutary reminder that we are human beings first.Despite growing up speaking Spanish and Swedish, Diaz has made no secret of his love for the English language. He writes longhand in notebooks, in English, with a Mont Blanc pen, often in the Centre for Brooklyn History library, close to his home. He is widely read and his academic background contributes to the wealth of previous reading that enriches this novel.I really didn’t want this thoughtful, elegantly-written book to end and would recommend it to others.

For once, the lavish praise by self-serving publishers and publicists seems justified. The novel is an addictive, absorbing read, clever and subversive in its accurate though fictional depiction of how extreme wealth in the hands of a few individuals, combined with ego, can 'bend' reality to a false, misogynistic narrative. After all, we see it every day with the political and corporate classes in the US and UK running roughshod over representative democracy, human rights and free speech. Incidentally, it's also a considerable feat to achieve all this in defiance of creative writing schools' conventional wisdom that fiction must show, not tell.

It is a well written and intuitive book and well worth the read.

Herman Diaz's 2023 Pulitzer Prize winning novel "Trust" absorbed me from beginning to end. For several days, I was captivated -- couldn't wait to get to it. This is a rarity for me. "Trust" is largely set in the financial district of New York City in the years surrounding the Great Depression.Here is a bare-bones summary of the story. The main character is a financier and trader, Andrew Bevel, the latest, and last, of a line of traders in his family. The reclusive Bevel amasses a large fortune during the 1920s and also manages to make money during the early stages of the Depression. Bevel's wife, Mildred, is the daughter of another New York State family with wealth and with intellectual interests. While Bevel concentrates on making his fortune, Mildred promotes educational, artistic, and cultural endeavors, particularly the development of 20th Century classical music. When Mildred dies in a Swiss sanatorium, in the 1930s, Bevel carries on but is somewhat less successful than in the days with his wife. After Bevel's death and lengthy wrangling over his estate, his palatial New York City home is turned into a museum.As is pointed out through "Trust", American literature has many works about New York City, the wealthy classes, the financial markets, and the nature of capitalism. This novel brings to it subject a strong sense of perspectivism. Bevel's story is told in four voices by four individuals, each with their own distinct voice and background. Each story has commonalities, but each is also different in terms of what happened and in terms of human relationships. The reader is left to think through the stories to come to an understanding of events and people. Showing and considering different points of view is integral to the humanities, whether history, literature, or philosophy, and to this novel. "Trust" considers city life, capitalism and greed, the arts, marriage, the relationship between imagination and realism, and more within its complex structure. It is challenging and mostly effective.Each of the four storytellers are fascinating both as writers and as themselves. The first, Harold Vanner, was a minor novelist of the day who wrote a heavily fictionalized novella about the Bevels titled "Bonds". It was fascinating to get hints about Vanner through the book and to read his account. The second part, "My Life" was written by Andrew Bevel himself, with help, and tells his story from his perspective and to rebut Vanner's book.The third and longest story is "A Memoir, Remembered" by Ida Partenza. She tells her tale from the standpoint of a 70 year old successful author. Partenza had been raised in poverty in Brooklyn by her father, an anarchist. At the age of 23, Bevel had hired her to help write his Autobiography. Partenza discusses her life with her father, how she came to be hired by Bevel, and how she became fascinated by the writing project and shaped it to her own as well as to Bevel's ends. The final section of the book, "Futures" consists of diary entries by Midred during her time in the Swiss sanatorium just before her death. Midred has a different perspective on the story and on her relationship with Bevel than do the other three storytellers.The reader will be encouraged to think about the world of financial trusts and about whom to trust among the four narrators, with their differing aims and perspectives. In his "Phaedrus", Plato has Socrates say that the written word can be revealing but also narrowing in its fixity.With the many earlier literary antecedents to Diaz's novel, I was reminded most of "Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer" by Steven Millhauser which won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Martin Dressler is an American entrepreneur who, unlike Bevel was born to modest means. Dressler reaches the American dream of riches in New York City by founding a series of hotels before his businesses and his personal life come crashing down on his head. The story is a mix of realism and surrealism which captured something of the themes and locations of "Trust" in its own way. Unfortunately "Martin Dressler" has fallen into neglect. It deserves to be read both in it own right and as another voice on the themes of "Trust"."Trust" is a challenging, provocative novel about an aspect of the American dream and the American experience.Robin Friedman

Interesting and amazing at the same time.I decided to read the english version and the prose was superb.Once you finish reading, it is obvious why Hernan Diaz won the Pulitzer Price!

Ein tolles Buch, dessen Wirkung sich erst am Ende voll entfaltet, denn die vier verschieden Perspektiven lassen jeweils andere Aspekte der zwei Hauptgestalten erscheinen, weshalb ein sehr komplexes Bild entsteht. Wer alle Puzzleteile am Ende zusammensetzt, wird überrascht sein. Unbedingt zu empfehlen! Ein Leserlebnis!

The various parts of this book are written in different styles. The authorial voice changes completely—an incredibly skilful piece of work.