Writing in an obsolete tone
Diaz says the opening section of Trust was the most enjoyable to write because its literary conceit let him adopt an obsolete, beautiful prose style.
Reviewed
Updated
Read Time
8 min read
Age & reading levelAdult
Reader rating
4.1 · 41,205 Amazon ratings
reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks scoreShare This Review
Hernan Diaz's Trust, which shared the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, tells of a secretive New York financier and his wife through four contradictory texts. Reviewers split on whether that structure rewards or only impresses.
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
Readers of formally inventive literary fiction who enjoy weighing unreliable narrators across four contradictory documents and will let the prose carry them through an exposition-heavy opening.
Worth it if
Worth reading if you like a literary puzzle about money and storytelling and can accept that its cleverness is the main event.
Skip if
Skip it if you need dialogue and distinct voices, want a driving plot, or want a sharp exposé of finance.
Where reviewers agree and split
Readers rate it 4.1 on Amazon. The reviews we read that discuss it in depth split on some points:
Of the 2 reviews we read that discuss its prose, 1 admires the prose, but 1 finds the opening sections clunky and dull.
Prose
1 admires the prose · 1 finds the opening sections clunky and dull
Who says what
Prose
Praise
“They pale in comparison to Diaz’s fluid and vivid prose.”
— American Literary Review · Book blogCriticism
“The first two sections have no voices, no dialogue, and are therefore clunky and dull.”
— Open Letters Review · Book blogWhat readers & critics say
Critical reception leans positive but is split on how well the design works. Kirkus Reviews called it a feat of literary gamesmanship that feels complex but never convoluted, and Harvard Review praised its fractal beauty. The American Literary Review's Josh Zimmerer admired the prose but felt Mildred's closing diary comes too little, too late, and Open Letters Review's Tom LeClair judged the opening sections dull.
“So the novel overall feels complex but never convoluted, focused throughout on the dissatisfactions of wealth and the suppression of information”
— Kirkus Reviews4.1from 41,205 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
Ask LuvemBooks
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Trust builds four contradictory texts about the same two people and leaves the reader to weigh them. It suits readers who enjoy a literary puzzle and can let the prose carry them through an exposition-heavy opening, with the caveat that reviewers split on whether the structure rewards or merely impresses.
- Is it worth reading?
- Worth reading if you value formal ingenuity, with the caveat that the reception genuinely divides. Harvard Review's Hardeep Sidhu praised its rare beauty and found it well paced and suspenseful, while Open Letters Review's Tom LeClair judged the opening sections dull. Josh Zimmerer of the American Literary Review admired the prose but felt the final diary arrives belatedly.
- Similar books
- The Deedi Reads review compares the structure to Susan Choi's Trust Exercise, noting a similar format but different voices and themes. For fiction that revisits a famous story from a neglected point of view, as Mildred's diary does, March by Geraldine Brooks is a fit from our catalogue. Hernan Diaz's own earlier In the Lonely Place is also worth seeking out, as is The Hours by Michael Cunningham if you like novels that braid several voices.
- Who should read this?
- Readers who enjoy formally inventive literary fiction and are happy to weigh contradictory accounts across four documents. It points away from readers who want an unambiguous exposé of finance or dialogue and voice.
- What age is it for?
- Trust is written for adults. Its demands are structural, with nested fictions to track, and no firm age cutoff is given here. Mature teens who enjoy formally complex fiction could manage it.
- About Hernan Diaz
- Hernan Diaz is an Argentine and American writer.
- What are the main themes?
- Sidhu reads the book as a story of our time: capital's inexorable march in the face of economic crisis, with enduring questions about who holds wealth and how it shapes the stories we tell. BookBrowse's Chloe Pfeiffer adds a feminist reading, a retelling of a male-oriented story that asks what is missing from each account.
- How does it use the Depression setting?
- NPR called the third section captivating and noted that it mostly takes place during the Great Depression. Sidhu uses the era of wealthy New Yorkers to tell a story of our time rather than allegory. The reviews we found don't assess period detail or accuracy, so readers wanting that will need to look elsewhere.
Summarize this book
Is it worth reading?
Who should read this?
What age is it for?
About Hernan Diaz
What are the main themes?
How does it use the Depression setting?
Summarize this book
Trust is made of four fictional texts: a novel called Bonds, an incomplete autobiography, a memoir by Ida Partenza and a diary kept by Mildred Bevel. Each concerns the same two people, and they contradict one another. In Bonds the couple are Benjamin and Helen Rask, a Wall Street tycoon and an aristocrats' daughter whose fortune survives the 1929 crash. In the later sections they are Andrew and Mildred Bevel, and Andrew's autobiography is written as a rebuttal, claiming Bonds is a thinly veiled and slanderous account of his own life.
Follow up
Why do the names change?
Who is Ida Partenza?
Synthesized from verified book data & published reviews · How we review
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Our Review
We review the evidence: published critics, reader verdicts and BookTube reviews, gathered and weighed with AI assistance and edited by LuvemBooks, rather than one reader's first-hand take.
Worth reading, with one caveat: Hernan Diaz's Trust earns its Pulitzer share as a puzzle of competing narratives, though not every reviewer found the puzzle as rich as the prose around it.
Harvard Review's Hardeep Sidhu called it an intricate novel with a "rare, fractal beauty," and Deedi Reads' reviewer, who loved it, said it stayed with them for days after finishing. That split is the story of this book's reception.
What happens across the four books of Trust?
Trust, a 2022 novel that shared the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (Wikipedia's account), is built from four fictional texts: a novel, an incomplete autobiography, a memoir and a diary. Each concerns a secretive New York financier and his wife, and the accounts contradict one another, leaving the reader to decide what is true.
The names shift because the layers differ. In the opening novel-within-the-novel, Bonds, the financier and his wife are Benjamin and Helen Rask, a Wall Street tycoon and an aristocrats' daughter whose fortune survives the 1929 crash.
In the later sections they are Andrew and Mildred Bevel, and Wikipedia describes Andrew writing his autobiography as a rebuttal, claiming Bonds is a thinly veiled and slanderous account of his own life.
As Sidhu describes it, the longest section is a memoir by Ida Partenza, daughter of an Italian anarchist, who comes to work for Andrew Bevel. The last section is Mildred's own diary, which reads as her chance to speak after being a fleeting presence in the men's stories.
What did critics find in the Great Depression setting?
Sidhu wrote that Diaz trains his eye on the wealthy New Yorkers of the Great Depression to tell a story of our time: capital's inexorable march in the face of economic crisis. He added that Diaz avoids allegory in favour of enduring questions about who holds wealth and how it shapes the stories we tell.
NPR's review called the third section captivating and noted that it mostly takes place during the Great Depression. The reviews we found don't assess the book's period detail or accuracy, so readers wanting that will have to look elsewhere.
What the critics engage with is the money, not the period texture: Diaz said, in remarks BookBrowse quotes, that there are very few novels dealing with the process of accumulation of capital.
Does the structure of Trust pay off or fall flat?
Here reviewers part ways. Sidhu admitted the novel-within-a-novel conceit is a pet peeve, but said Bonds succeeds on its own terms, evoking Edith Wharton's perceptive eye and the muckrakers' moral intensity.
Once the story starts over, he wrote, the reader must parse contradictory accounts as in a detective novel, and Diaz delivers a well-paced, suspenseful book.
Josh Zimmerer, in the American Literary Review, praised Diaz's fluid and vivid prose and said it captivates even through the first two sections, which are told almost strictly through exposition. His reservation is the diary: after hundreds of pages of building the myth, he felt the grand retort arrives too little, too late, since a narrative that subverts its content still reaffirms it.
Tom LeClair of Open Letters Review went furthest the other way. He called the first two sections clunky and dull for lacking voices and dialogue.
Chloe Pfeiffer, reviewing for BookBrowse, framed it as a feminist retelling of a male-oriented story that Diaz himself wrote, asking what is missing from each account. She noted that Trust is conventional in answering its pressing plot questions at the end.
Who is Trust for, and who will it frustrate?
The Deedi Reads reviewer recommended it to readers who like a literary puzzle and unusual structures, and thought it would make an excellent book club choice. That reviewer also said not to let comparisons to Susan Choi's Trust Exercise put you off: the format is similar, but the voices and themes are different.
Patience is the main price of entry. LeClair's complaint about the opening sections is one other reviewers answer with praise for the prose, so it comes down to taste.
Readers who want a clean, driving plot from the first page may share his impatience, while those who enjoy being asked to weigh unreliable narrators will find that the point.
NPR described the novel as constantly pulling a fast one on the reader. Whether that feels like a delight or a trick is the dividing line.
Is Trust worth reading? Our take
Weighing these reviews, the tension they circle is whether Trust's cleverness is a gift or a trap. Sidhu and other reviewers treat the shifting accounts as the engine of the book.
That points the book toward readers who enjoy structure for its own sake and are happy to let prose and form carry them through a slower start. It points away from readers who want an unambiguous exposé of finance, or who need dialogue and voice from the opening pages.
BookBrowse's read-alikes include Lords of Finance, and the Deedi Reads review compares the structure to Trust Exercise. If you liked the formal games of that book, or want fiction about money rather than the wealthy's private lives, Trust is the stronger fit.
As of this writing, Gold Derby's forum thread carries reports, relayed from social media, of an HBO limited series with Kate Winslet attached; check current news before relying on any of it.
Sources & Further Reading
The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.
- Cited in this review
- 1
kirkusreviews.com
- Further reading
- 2
Hernan Diaz, LuvemBooks
- 3
en.wikipedia.org
- 4
- 5
nytimes.com
- 6
pulitzer.org
- 7
bookbrowse.com
- 8
americanliteraryreview.com
- 9
deedireads.com
- 10
openlettersreview.com
- 11
Harvard Review
- 12
Age & Reading Level
Recommended age
Adult
who it suits
Skip if you need dialogue and distinct voices from the first pages, or want a driving plot or a sharp exposé of finance.
Hernan Diaz on Trust
CBS Sunday Morning profile of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hernan Diaz discussing his novel 'Trust', his writing process, and his background.
Uploaded by CBS Sunday Morning, 2023 · Watch on YouTube ·
Finance as an utterly womanless world
Diaz explains that researching historical American finance revealed an entirely male domain, and reviewing the archives of tycoons' wives showed how suffocating their daily lives were.
Contrasting Brooklyn and the Financial District
Diaz notes that Trust focuses heavily on the stark divide and dissonance between working-class immigrant Brooklyn and Wall Street across the river.
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