Trust: the dazzling twisty story of power, greed and love that begins in 1920s New York Paperback – 1 Jun. 2023

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.

A puzzle of a book that has to be read to the end. At first I wasn’t sure where it was heading - the contents page lists 4 different sections seemingly written by different (fictional) authors. All this did was raise questions in my mind and the more I read the more curious and intrigued I became. I really enjoyed the period setting, the roaring twenties, lives of the wealthy and social elite but I must admit that some of the financial stuff was a bit over my head - I understood the gist of it but the technical terms and vocabulary were a little bit confusing. I got the overall picture which was the main thing but it was the people in each story that were so fascinating and diverse and the way that their lives were intertwined and the connections that were made between each part of the book The different authors’ voices were distinctive and individual, the writing intelligent and literary, the story so well devised and executed. It is a story within a story, kaleidoscopic in nature and a very satisfying read.Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy - I liked it so much I bought the hardback!

This is the second book in a row that I have read that is essentially a number of books in one novel. The difference with this one, is that the for books are linked, indeed they're effectively different versions of the same story. The writing here is good, indeed it takes skill to write four versions of the same story but using different voices and make it authentic.So far so good. However there are issues. The main one is that for me at least, the story is not strong enough to have four different versions of it. The second issue is that the stories are of inconsistent standard. Book one, is an interesting but ultimately underwhelming first version. Book 2, forgettable and uninspiring, book 3, really good and the best by some distance and book 4 which is the big reveal. There is a big dollop of unreliable narrator and it works to a point but Diaz is no Ishiguro. Overall, a decent read with some issues but I'm surprised if won the Pulitzer.