Hey BookTube, this is Kelly. Thank you so much for watching my channel, Books I'm Not Reading. I am here today to review Trust by Hernan Diaz.
This won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction this year along with Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I think you've, if you've been watching my channel, you'll know like that is a very big deal. We've never had two Pulitzer Prize winners in a year for that particular category for fiction. So, yeah. it's very unusual but um I was able to snatch this up um the day it was announced demon copperhead not so much but um anyway so I did read trust um I was looking around there are a lot of reviews of this book because it was also I think it was on the book or long list maybe.
So it's gotten a lot of attention on booktube. I also found an interview that I will link to down below. Hernan Diaz was a guest on Seth Meyers late night show when the book was published and it's a very it's a very funny interview and they end up talking about fountain pens and things like that and Hernandez is like do you really want to talk about fountain pens really but uh anyway I don't think there are any spoilers in that interview and I will let you know if I go into part of this video that's a spoiler um because I I really do want people to read this book and keep talking about it it's it's fascinating if you've read it please keep your comments spoiler free but I would love to know what you thought of this book first of all the title the cover I don't know I've seen other covers for this book but I can't see them up close so I don't know quite what they are but I think the title of the book is is genius because we instantly know that it's about money and we also know like no we shouldn't like these are gonna be there's definitely gonna be at least one unreliable narrator in this book right if someone tells you to trust um in the literary world like you should be on your guard um that that that may be turned on its head um this book takes place in the 1920s and 30s which makes a lot of sense again because it's about money um so it is the structure of it is what i really find the most fascinating it's broken into four categories the first one is a novel um and And that's called Bonds. So again, right from the beginning, we know, okay, this is a novel. It's going to be about money, but it's also going to be about relationships, which I think is true throughout the book.
But it was very strange reading that first novel, knowing that it's a novel within a novel. And so the names are going to be changed, and there's going to be different things that come out of it. But...
But I was trying, as I was reading Bonds, to not get too attached to those particular characters, knowing it was a very kind of meta experience. These are literary covers for other people, other real people, who I'm going to meet later in this novel. The second part is an... autobiography by Andrew Bevel called My Life and then there is a memoir by Ida, I can't remember her last name. The final section is called Futures by Mildred Bevel.
So just even looking at the table of contents you're like okay um there's an Andrew Bevel and there's a Mildred Bevel so I should probably like pay attention as I'm reading Bonds and, you know, see if I see, do I, are, are the bevels mentioned in any of, in the book? Anyway, so Bonds, is about Benjamin and Helen Rask and talks a lot about his, Benjamin Rask's work in the stock market on Wall Street, his great ability to accumulate wealth, his wife Helen is a philanthropist and a great supporter of the arts and things sort of deteriorate with her character as the novel goes on in in bonds um and then we get to the autobiography by Andrew Bevel and quickly realize that Andrew is actually Benjamin Rask But Andrew, it's presented as like, this is the complete thing, right? Like, My Life by Andrew Bevel.
And as soon as you start reading it, you realize like, oh, this is like a manuscript. This isn't really, you know, there's parts where it's just like, talk more about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, like, it's not fully fleshed out. The third section is a memoir.
Again. I should know her last name. Ida Partenza, whose father is an anarchist.
And anyway, so I don't want to go too much farther into what the last section features by Mildred Bevel is journal entries. So we have all these different kinds of writing. We have a novel, we have what's supposed to be you know non-fiction and memoir and then journal entries and again i think the title really explains to us like we really have to question each narrator um what is what is the truth what isn't the truth um and you know in some ways like we are all unreliable narrators in our own lives right thought the structure of the book was really really brilliant and maybe the best part of it because each layer as you go through it you sort of feel like the the a veil is is being is being lifted up right like like it's and it gets more and more stripped down i gave this book um four stars the only reason why i gave it four stars and i may i may go back and change it five stars because it is a really great book. I felt like because the last two sections are told in a female voice, I wanted more distinction between those voices because the memoir and the journal obviously are both both written in first person and I just couldn't quite like...
And again, I think maybe if they had been, and I don't think he could have separated them out because of the structure of the book, which is again, just genius. But I didn't feel enough distinction between the female voices that I wanted to feel. I wanted to feel how different those two characters really are.
So, okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk about some spoilery things here. So if you haven't read Trust, I want you to read it.
Tell me what you think. Come back later. But I'm going to go into some spoilery things.
Maybe you don't care about that. But if you do, you should definitely stop watching the video now. So I think one of the things that's fascinating about this book is that we know because of when it's set what's coming.
right? The big world event, the stock market crash, 1929, the beginning of the Great Depression, which the characters don't. Really only the first part of the book bonds, right?
Like that's the only place where, because it's written afterwards, right? It's written after the fact, can we see what is actually, what's actually headed their way? And of course the bevels, they don't suffer. They don't suffer from the Great Depression because they see it coming.
Which is a really, really interesting idea. A really, really interesting idea. I also, even though I wanted more distinction in the female voice, I do think Hernan Diaz gets and was trying to make a point about the marginalization of women. That in this period of time, women are more ornaments. They're meant to, again, you know, be philanthropists and care about other people.
But like, they're not mathematical geniuses. How could that possibly be the case, right? They're not, they can't be smarter than their husbands. When we think about big money, especially in the 1920s, A lot of male names come to mind. I did think that he was really trying to explore the fact that women are completely absent from the world of finance, especially at this time.
And part of me feels like that still holds true. I could be wrong about that, but I definitely don't feel as much. Again, when we're talking about money, the stock market, that sort of thing, it just always seems to be from a male perspective.
But again... I'm not like, I'm not like swinging on the stock market right now. So I don't pay, I'm not paying as much attention to it as, as maybe, maybe I should.
Um, but I, I did appreciate the fact that he was trying to talk about the role of women in finance. Um, uh, and if you watch the Seth Meyers interview, he does actually talk about, um, you know, how Even the language around finance is meant to be more confusing than it needs to be. Like it's, yeah, it's almost silly in some ways.
I do think like this is a worthy Pulitzer Prize winner. There have been a lot of books, a lot of Pulitzers that talk about the Great Depression. or life before the depression. But I'm not sure if there's one that's right there, like the before and the after. Like I'm not sure there's one that's like right on the point of it and that deals so much not only with money, but also with a marriage.
So I really, really liked that kind of the contrast of this world of finance again which like even in Andrew Bevel's memoir he's like oh it was shocking like women were buying on the stock market you know well later on of course we learn more about like what's really happening um but I do think like it again I'm always looking for what does this say about America right now because in theory it's not a it's It's not 100% true every year for Pulitzer winners, but in theory, the Pulitzer is supposed to sort of address Americana or American issues. If you look at the history of the Pulitzers, I think each winner speaks to, if it's a historical novel, not only the time, you know, like this one. So it's not only talking to us about the 1920s and the 1930s, but it's also talking to us about right now.
So I personally, and I rarely, rarely talk about politics on my channel, but most of the people in the Senate and the House of Representatives in America are, I think, are bought out by the 1% in the world who, or in the United States. who have interests that they want to make sure nothing happens to them. I come from the world of, I mean, not professionally, but, um, yeah, like I live in a very boom or bust kind of city because it is so dependent on what's going on with, um, oil, gas, Trona. if you've ever heard of Trona before. The natural resources of the world are very, very important to the economy of where I live.
And if they're not doing well, then there are no jobs. And if they're doing well, then there are more jobs and more opportunities. And it's really, it's challenging.
It's a challenging thing. Especially when you are trying to also like make sure that the environment is protected as well, which is also part of one of our incredible natural resources where I live. This is very much talking about money, making money, like compound interest, you know, like using your money to make more money and using that money to make even more money, like just the multiplying factor of it all. Um, but when I think about this book in terms of 2022 and 2023, I'm thinking about politicians and their connection to Wall Street, you know, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and again of course the one percent that seem to control so much. I'm not sure, you know, like I can't say like that's what like Hernández was was definitely going for but that's what I took away from it and that's also my best guess that I'll probably ever have about why it won the Pulitzer.
I would love to know if you have read Trust what you think. Do you think it deserved to win the Pulitzer Prize? Again please try to keep the comments spoiler free for those who haven't read the book.
But yeah, I'm really curious as to your thoughts on this. So I know a lot of people on BookTube have already read this and made reviews. So there's plenty of reviews out there. But again, I'd love to hear from you. What do you think about this book?
If you don't feel comfortable leaving a comment, you can leave some sort of money-related emoji in the comment section. Or you can give this video a... thumbs up just as a way of saying hello. I do really appreciate that.
Booktube, thank you so much for watching my channel. It means so much to me. Please remember to be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and I'll be back with another video.
Bye!