Trust (2022) by Hernan Diaz

Book Review

Trust (2022)

by Hernan Diaz

   There is always a bit of lull for me in the reading year- starting in mid June and running until the Booker Longlist is announced in July.  I'm always inclined to wait for that longlist to come out before I venture beyond the books that grab at me from my feed.  Americans were strongly represented on this year's longlist- notably Nightcrawling by Oakland's own Leila Mottley, The Trees by USC literature professor Percival Everett and two books that I had already passed on until their inclusion made me reverse myself- Booth by Karen Joy Fowler and this book, Trust by Hernan Diaz.

   I'd read reviews when Trust came out earlier this year- I was both ignorant of the author, Hernan Diaz, which reflects poorly on me, not him, and leery of the elevator pitch, "Metafictional text about an extremely wealthy early 20th century Financier and his wife."  It sounded interesting but not compelling, but after the Booker Longlist arrived I quickly checked out the Audiobook from the Los Angeles Public Library.   Trust is a set of four different texts: The first is a work of fiction a la The Financier by Theodore Dreiser.  It's called Bonds, and its tells the ultimately tragic tale of the first and greatest Wall Street operator and his arty wife.  The next text is notes towards an autobiography written by the "real life" inspiration for the main character in Bonds.  The third text is a New Yorker type article by a woman who served as the personal secretary for said inspiration when he was writing his autobiography.  The final text is the pay off, and none of the reviews I've read actually discuss it, leading me to believe its revelation would consitute a "spoiler." 

  I quite enjoyed Trust, though I'm not sure its a short lister- it might be a National Book Award and/or Pultizer Nominee- vibe-wise Trust reminds me of Richard Powers- a recent winner and author of a book- Gain, that really reminds me of Trust, in that it attempts to convey an economic narrative in a novel.   I'm very into that idea, and I wish there were more books that took economics and money seriously-  I often have the thought while reading literary fiction from American and the English speaking world, that every writer of literary fiction is a teacher of literature  or a journalist.  Any novel that takes me outside of that narrow world is a win.