Trust by Hernan Diaz

My Rating: 2.0

In the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.

This was a book club read, otherwise I may not have finished it. The novel superficially explores money is a social construct and a medium: We ascribe value to it in a complex system of social agreements - which is the connection between money and language. This is also the connex between the myth of the American dream and the cult of wealth. It really didn't say anything new. None of the characters are likable. I appreciated the creativity of the author with writing this four part series of a book within a book but the plot, as several others have mentioned, was very dry and boring. 

Part 1 - Wall Street tycoon Benjamin Rask marries brilliant Helen

Part 2 - Autobiography of Andrew Bevel who turns out to be Benjamin Rask

Part 3 - Ida Partenza, the ghostwriter of the manuscript in Part 2 who is tasked with writing Rask's autobiography

Part 4 - Mildred (aka Helen) Rask's diaries