Trust

by Herman Diaz 

The book group that met on November 16  grappled with “Trust,” that is, the book of that name by Hernan Diaz. Trust shared the Pulitzer Prize in 2023 with Demon Copperhead, but several of the book group members said they preferred the latter tome, which they had discussed the previous month.

Trust tells the story of a moneyed world in the 1920’s, and how male tycoons dominated the financial industry. Diaz sets out to myth bust the traditional view of Wall Street and highlight characters with different points of view. A metaphysical puzzle unfolds across the four separate booklets of Trust. Frames within frames tell the underlying story.

The author has a Ph.D. in comparative literature and lives in Brooklyn NY. He wrote Trust in the New York Public Library, in longhand, using his favorite ink pen. In an interview Diaz says that writing in longhand is a sensual experience and that he was prepared for the cold shadow of rejection. It is Diaz’s second longhand book, the first what he terms a genre-bending Western.

- Jane Gould