Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

I’ve read a few of the reviews here, and they all portray this novel as being about the stock market as it boomed in the 1920s and then came crashing down, manipulated by a brilliant and anti-social fictional financier.No!It is true that in reading this book, written in four parts, you will learn a great deal about the free market system and its ups and downs in pre-WW2 American history. But by the middle of Part 3 you will begin to suspect that the novel is not about finance at all, and by the end it’s clear: This is an astonishingly original take on a marriage as practiced by an intelligent but unexceptional man and a remarkable and gifted woman who, because of her gender, can never be credited for either her positive contributions or her destructiveness.Part I – A fictional account of said financier, name of Rask, and his wife. He commands the market and she deteriorates via devastating mental illness, her treatment commanded by her husband as well.Part 2 – The novel continues in the form of notes made by Rask as he, real name Bevel, tries to write something to counter what he views as a sensationalistic and false novel barely concealing his identity.Part 3 – The format shifts to an account written by the secretary Bevel hires to complete his writing task, as she reflects upon their relationship decades later. It becomes apparent that, as a woman, she saw much about his wife that he preferred to twist to suit his own need for control over his life story as published and over even his personal memories.Part 4 – The very brief journal kept by Mrs. Bevel in the final days of her life. All becomes clear as she acknowledges who she is and what role she actually played in the life of her husband and in the financial world.This amazing novel will leave you wondering about everyone of significance in your own life and the many points of view from which their/our stories might be told and manipulated. In fact, having used the word at least twice, I would argue that “manipulation” is the most prominent theme of the book.Absolutely brilliant.

Well written and captivating look at the life of a wealthy couple living in the early 1900s. Pieces of the story become clearer through different storytellers.

Sydney M. Williams“Trust,” Hernan Diaz“Chaos is a vortex that spins faster with each thing it swallows.” Hernan Diaz (1973-) Trust, 2022This is an exceptional story. Because of the way it unfolds, the book is difficult to review without spoiling it for readers. The title is cryptic and ambivalent. Characters are believable, until contradicted. Who is telling the truth? We are left in wonder, but we are pleased.The table of contents alerts us that this is no ordinary story. Four chapters listed, each by a different author. In reality, it is the same story told by different people, and, of course, all by Hernan Diaz. The question: Which version should the reader believe? At its heart is a gifted, but ethically challenged, early 20th Century New York financier, Andrew Bevel and his troubled but brilliant, and now deceased, wife Mildred. The book opens with “Bonds,” a fictional story by Harold Vanner, based on Bevel’s life, but with the names changed to Benjamin and Helen Rask. The story tells of Rask’s background and that of his wife, his financial prowess, and Mildred’s mental health troubles. The second section, “My Life,” is written by Bevel in response to Vanner’s story. In it, he presents his tale of events, emphasizing his financial acumen and his story of his wife’s illness. The third section, “A Memoir, Remembered,” is by Ida Partenza. Ida had been Bevel’s secretary in the late 1930s and helped him compile his book. Looking back from a distance of fifty years, she offers remembrances of that time. At just over 160 pages, this is the longest section. The fourth story, or chapter is the shortest and is comprised of notes written by Mildred when she was in the Swiss sanitarium. In this we learn that Bevel’s fortune may not have been made as have been led to believe. So, whom do we believe: Vanner, Bevel, Partenza, or Mildred? Whom should we trust?Not wanting to give the story away, a few samples of Diaz’s writing might entice a potential reader: “Despite his honest efforts, he could not argue, with any semblance of passion, for the virtue of a lonsdale over a diadema…” “Since they both lived on the outskirts of political reality, they did not immediately understand the grave implications of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination.” “Whatever the past may have handed us, it is up to each one of us to chisel our present out of the shapeless block of the future.” And one with relevance for my recommendation of this book: “‘Well, sweetheart.’ His diction was muddled by a spoonful of ice cream he rolled around his tongue. ‘You’ll just have to trust me.’”Hernan Diaz was born in Buenos Aires in 1973 and spent his early childhood in Sweden. He currently lives in New York City. This is his second novel. His first, In the Distance, published in 2017, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. This novel won the Booker Prize in 2022. A fascinating novel, it won’t disappoint.

Very well written and interesting story. The story takes you into a time a world that most people don’t know or understand. It was very well written.

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