Marriage | Book Chatter

Trust
By Hernan Diaz
Published Riverhead, 9780593420324, May 2023, 416 pp.

The Short of It:

What happens when money can’t buy the perfect life?

The Rest of It:

Trust is a novel made up of four competing narratives:

The book opens with BONDS, a novel by Harold Vanner. The story of Wall Street financier Benjamin Rask and his wife, Helen. Rich beyond means, but dealing with Helen’s declining health and her descent into madness.
MY LIFE, a memoir by Andrew Bevel. This is Bevel’s attempt to correct the horrible fictionalization of his life in BONDS. It’s never completed and fails to hit the mark.
IDA’S MEMOIR, is the memoir that results from Ida’s story. Ida is the ghostwriter hired by Bevel to help him pen his memoir.
MILDRED’S JOURNAL is comprised of her personal papers detailing her life with Andrew and ultimately, what we know of her final days.

This was a fascinating read. The transitions between each story was a little jarring at first, until you get the hang of what is happening. I read this on my Kindle and at first, I thought my ebook copy was possibly corrupted but then it all began to make sense.

I have to say, I was pretty enthralled with Benjamin and Helen Rask. They lived quite the life of affluence. Parties, concerts, social circles and Helen’s philanthropy. I was very invested in their story, especially when Helen falls ill and descends into possible madness. BUT, this is the fictionalized story that Vanner absolutely hated!! So much so that he purchased the publishing house that put the book out and bought every copy to get it off the shelves. BONDS has dashes of GATSBY, in my opinion.

Bevel is quite the oddity. Somewhat brilliant as a financier but without possessing any tangible talent. Financial matters just seem to go his way. His desire to correct Vanner’s work leads him to hire a ghostwriter, Ida. This part of the story is really interesting. The hiring process gives us a window into Bevel’s life and Ida’s own memoir highlighting the experience gives us her unfettered opinion of Bevel himself.

The author gives us all of these female characters in various stages of realization and dare I say it, enlightenment. Historically, women didn’t play a large role in the world of finance, or did they? As the reader, you are tasked with putting all these stories together to find the real truth.

Was Bevel as devoted to his wife Mildred as he wants us to believe? Was Mildred really “too far gone” in her descent into illness or was she well aware of the goings on around her? Mental illness or some other ailment? Once you get to her journal, it’s not clear because it is after all HER point of view and she clearly writes from a medicated haze of awareness.

Who can you believe? What story is real?

I picked this for my club’s February read and I am really glad I did. It was pretty readable even with the different formats, but more than that, I was intrigued. I wanted to know more about these people and the search for truth, a somewhat elusive thing, was entertaining. I liked how the author didn’t really lead the reader by the hand, he sort of puts it all out there for you to interpret. I liked that the story could be considered from many different angles.

Trust won the Pulitzer for fiction, was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022 and made Obama’s list of fave reads for 2022. I really enjoyed Diaz’s writing and can’t wait for his next work. Trust is also being adapted into a series for HBO by Kate Winslet.

Highly recommend.

Source: Borrowed
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Pete and Alice in Maine
By Caitlin Shetterly
Harper, 9780063242661, July 2023, 256 pp.

The Short of It:

Trouble ahead.

The Rest of It:

Pete and Alice are married with two daughters. The COVID shutdowns have just happened. To avoid the crowds and the possibility of illness, they leave NYC and head to their summer home in Maine.

What they don’t expect is to find themselves unwelcome there. The residents quickly notice their city plates, and take action against them. Action in the form of a chainsaw, as they cut down trees to keep them hostage in their own driveway.

Pete and Alice are working through some issues. The idea of being held hostage in a small house, with their two moody kids is not to either of their liking but with the virus and Pete transitioning to remote work and Alice feeling the full weight of parenting in this difficult situation, they reluctantly try to make the best of it.

I’ve recently read a few books that feature COVID as a backdrop and Shetterly does an admirable job of setting the tension. I instantly remembered all the worry in those early days of the pandemic and Pete and Alice are forced to deal with all of it, plus issues of distrust and resentment.

Their marriage is not well. As they try to navigate whether or not to continue like this, Pete gets it in his head to head back to the city. This infuriates Alice. Why doesn’t he feel the need to protect them? Not only from the virus but from their hostile neighbors!

There’s a lot of internal dialogue. We meet Pete and Alice when they first cross paths, we see them become parents, we learn about their likes and dislikes, dreams and disappointments. Marriage is accurately depicted here. Not perfect by a long shot. Hard. The family dynamic is also quite genuine. Two opinionated girls, one who can read the writing on the wall. It’s hard to live and walk upright when your kids can read between the lines.

As difficult as the relationship is, there is time on the beach, picnics, and long afternoons spent reading.

I found the writing to be quite good. I would absolutely read this author again.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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