“Trust” by Hernan Diaz
This is an ambitious novel which the author carries off with success. A story divided into four sections, each following on from the earlier, consecutive but interlinked. A deep engrossing read.
The book opens with a novel within a novel – “Bonds” by Harold Vaneer; who becomes a character in his own right later in the book. It recounts a good story of ambition in 1920s New York following the lives of businessman Benjamin Rask and his wife Helen. Everything he touches seems to turn into gold, life is good he even prospers during the Wall Street crash of 1929, but in every good story things turn sour and some misfortune enters their lives. To say more would spoil this opening section.
Next we move to an autobiography of Andrew Bevel, himself a businessman the timespan the same. A self congratulatory informal record of his own successes and his marriage to Mildred. Some similarities are identified, the “real life” models for Vaneer’s characters in “Bonds”.
The third section is the experiences of Ida Partenza who is hired by Bevel to write up his career and back story, but we also get to know about her life and her father’s living in very different existence from her wealthy employer. She becomes a famous writer and is recounting her story in hindsight from her later, advanced years after a successful career.
Finally in the closing part of the book Mildred Bevel tells us her story.
Yet all these stories are recollections of the same events told from the view point of their principal narrator, or are they? This cleverly sculptured readable novel shows us the life of privileged New Yorkers, with excursions to Europe for recuperative reasons. Each section unfolds and comes to a conclusion only for the story to be revisited within the following sections and before the reader’s eyes possibly reformulated, possibly contorted but with such dexterity by Hernan Diaz, to give these four accounts their real writer’s name, they form an intriguing read and a wonderful birds eye view of New York life in the early 1920 to 1930s. An unusual book highly recommended.
