I loved the writing and clever plot presentation in this enthralling book. By the time I got it from the library wait-list I couldn’t remember what it was about or who had recommended it. But I dove in, and barely came up for breath. Here is my book review Trust by Hernan Diaz.

The novel opens with a story about a 1930’s Wall Street Tycoon Benjamin Rask, with uncanny ability to know what the market will do, before it does it. The story also opens with the wife of this tycoon, Helen, who is slowly going mad.

Next we jump to another story, but gosh the characters seem so familiar…but not exactly. Another wealthy Wall Street speculator Andrew Bevel, and his wife Mildred. Living in a world of wealth and philanthropy in the 1920’s in New York City, but the wife is slowly dying of cancer…I begin to wonder if this book is a collection of novellas pulled together about Wall Street?

But no. Diaz has a exceptional writing style and he eloquently pulls these narratives into each other. The reader is not quit sure if you are reading an autobiography, a fictional tale, a diary or a manuscript. And you honestly are reading all of the above. What is going on here?

Enter Ida Partenza. This young woman, will be the one who pulls all of these storylines together. But we first meet her as a 70-year-old women, looking back at her remarkable time with Andrew Bevel. A brief and strange employment that ended abruptly and left so many unanswered questions. Through her memory, and Diaz’s brilliant plot development, all of the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place. And you will wonder…who can you ever really Trust?

*****Five Stars for Trust by Hernan Diaz.

Thank you for reading my book review Trust by Hernan Diaz.

Read last week’s book review A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

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