REVIEW: Trust by Herman Diaz

 

I was in The Bookery not too long ago - I love that I work in Manchester now and can go back there more regularly - and I saw this book in the markdown pile and saw that it had gotten some good reviews so I was interested. And it was pretty decent - kept me on my toes that's for sure!

Trust is literally about that and money. It is about how money and it's ability to force things into a narrative that conforms to the narrative that whoever has the money wants it to be. The first section is a novel within a way - the novel within is called Bonds, a novel about a Wall Street tycoon named Benjamin Rask and his wife, Helen. During the twenties, Rask gathers money and Helen becomes a patron of the arts. Then the Crash of 1929 occurs and Rask is demonized and ostracized as is Helen (she's more ostracized then demonized). The last chapters of the novel within the novel are about Helen's time in a sanitorium in Switzerland where she's dealing with mania and eczema so bad that her skin bleeds. The next section is in kind of a direct contrast - we learn about Ida Partenza, her job as the secretary for another Wall Street mogul named Andrew Bevel and her ghostwriting of his memoir. Bevel's life forms the basis of the novel Bonds, which infuriates him because, in large part, he's not controlling the narrative. He's so infuriated he's used his money to have all the copies removed from NY's Public Libraries. 

It was an interesting and creative but at the end of the day it was not the best novel that I have ever read. I found the sections of ghostwritten notes very hard to read and tough to slog through, although I loved Partenza's part. I haven't discounted reading Diaz's other novel, however, as by all accounts that one is better.