Books: Trust By Hernan Diaz

 

(Drivebycuriosity) -  I am always searching for new interesting book writers. So last year´s Booker Prize winner appeared on my radar: Hernan Diaz`s "Trust" ( amazon.).

I turned out that the book contains 4 novels, kind of. It starts with "Bonds" a novel-in-novel by a fictional author about a hyper successful Wall Street investor & speculator (long and short turn) and his wife, followed by the fictional autobiography of another hyper successful Wall Street guy, very similar to the first novel, then follows another fictional autobiography, this time by a woman, who had worked for the author of novel 2 and then follow notes by the fictional wife from novel 2. 

I was fascinated by "Bonds", musings about the stock market and a description of the Roaring Twenties and the causes of the stock market meltdown starting late 1929. Being educated as an economist and having covered financial markets for newspapers, magazines and an online service over some years I enjoyed Diaz´s  view. There are a lot cliches of course and some parts are overdramatic but Diaz`s prose is wonderful and there are passages full of magic.

I found novel 2 rather tedious, there is way too much bragging and there are too many oversimplifications. And I did not care about parts 3 & 4.

Because of the amazing "Bonds" part I liked the book in general and I might read more by Diaz.