Writing | 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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Novelist as a Vocation
By Haruki Murakami
Translated by Philip Gabriel & Ted Goossen
Knopf, 9780451494641, November2022, 224pp.

The Short of It:

Fans of Murakami will enjoy this personal look at writing from his point of view.

The Rest of It:

If you’ve been around me for awhile then you know how much I love Murakami. I wait around, endlessly for new books to be translated and when they are, I have been known to beg and plead for a review copy. This was no exception.

Novelist as a Vocation is a collection of short essays about how he came to be a novelist. It touches on process but it’s more about the internal dialogue he had with himself about becoming a writer. One day, he just decided he was going to write a novel. He didn’t feel all that equipped to do so but he was a dedicated reader, and knew what he liked to read and felt that he had stories to tell. That’s it.

Some of his earlier works were not a big hit, at first. His short fiction pieces that were published in the New York Times is what made his name known in literary circles and from there, his fan base grew. His odd characters and fantastical story elements have found a place in my heart His writing is what I call a “palate cleanser”. I read all types of books but when I need a reset, I reach for Murakami. I often have to settle for a re-read since the translation process usually means books are about 3-4 years apart.

I was surprised at how much he shares in this new book. He is usually pretty private. An everyday guy, doing everyday things, who just happens to be an award winning author but he lets us in with this one. As readers we see his insecurities at play. I do believe that being vulnerable is what makes his stories so unique. His imagination and character development have no boundaries. I love this about him.

If you are curious about Murakami and have never read one of his novels, pick up Kafka on the Shore or The Windup Bird Chronicle. These two books will give you a very good idea of his writing style. After that, you will want to know more about him as a novelist. That’s where Novelist as a Vocation comes in. Recommend.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
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