Hernan Diaz was awarded the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for his novel Trust. One sometimes worries that an award winning book might be forbidding and potentially a heavier fare than one is prepared for. But the title and the description were so enticing (I saw it in displayed in a bookstore window in Paris earlier this summer) that I decided along with a friend of mine to plunge into it.
These days, with Audible, Kindle and Paper copies of any of the works handy, I have gotten accustomed to seamlessly switching between them to keep the “reading” going, switching modes as the situation warrants (commuting vs going to bed etc).
The song “Trust in me, just in me…” from the original Disney Jungle Book comes to mind as Kaa the Snake tries to hypnotize Mowgli into a stupor, ostensibly to make him its prey. Mowgli escapes by luck and Sher Khan the Tiger is not susceptible to Kaa’s wiles.
That is as good an analogy as any to get at Diaz’ second novel which has already been translated into 20 languages.
- Is my review to be trusted? (Am I being paid to review it, for example)
- Is the author to be trusted? (Is he selling something or pushing some propaganda?)
- Are the characters and narrators in the Novel to be trusted? (Do they have agendas to make you believe their version of the tale?)
- Is the novel as an art form to be trusted? (For example this novel has a contents page - why?!)
The book is such a wonderful meditation and such a page turning, propulsive story that I finished it in one plane ride and an overnight stay at a hotel (admittedly a loooong plane ride and was jet lagged and unable to sleep at the hotel! See, you can’t quite trust my claim :-) )
Saying anything about the plot of the book will be giving a lot away. So I will stick to saying that a pitch for a movie of this book would be:
Citizen Kane meets Roshomon meets Wall Street meets Gender Inequity
Hernan Diaz is a virtuoso writer and a keen intellect observing our ever changing cultural mores. It is a true joy to discover him as a writer.
I heartily recommend Trust and am eager to now read his debut novel and his collection of essays.
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