Trust

by Hernan Diaz

This is a novel in four different  parts, all  telling the story of a couple, Andrew and Mildred Bevel with a special focus on the wife.

It is set in the New York of the 1920's, at the time of the Great Depression, in the harsh reality of the world of high finance.

From these four versions of the same story by four different narrators, which one are we going to trust ?

And what are the circumstances of Mildred’s death ?

_  BONDS by Harold Vanner tells the story of Benjamin and Helen Rask, fictional incarnations of  Andrew and Mildred Bevel

_  MY LIFE is Andrew Bevel’s autobiography. He has hired a secretary, Ida Partenza , to write it but he dies before the project is completed.  Andrew Bevel does not agree with Vanner’s version as to the origin of the family’s wealth and the couple’s life.  So, he wants to set the records straight. But he conceals  Mildred’s role in increasing his wealth and belittles her social role.

_ A MEMOIR  by Ida Partenza is the third part. This is an apocryphal version of Bevel’s biography. Decades later , the former secretary  Ida Partenza, investigates as a journalist the couple’s house made into a museum, and has access to documents among them Mildred’s Journals.

_ FUTURES is made up of the journals written by Mildred Bevel as she lay dying in a hospital in Switzerland. But her handwriting is difficult to decipher and parts of the journals are coded.

However, while scrutinizing the documents, Ida Partenza discovers the truth about Andrew and Mildred Bevel. In fact , Mildred had a superior intelligence and she was the mastermind behind Bevel’s success. She also explains Mildred’s love of music and her support of multiple charities  dear to her heart.

Conclusion :

Which story tells the trut?  Each narrator has a subjective and thus a biased way of telling the same story.

We are confronted here with mainly two competitive narratives, the second and the fourth one. 

So, whom do we trust ? The question remains open…

Hernan Diaz denounces the world of the high finance and wealth , a male dominated realm, where women are just adornment.  He also praises the fortitude and the resilience of women. 

Although the first part talking mainly about finance was off- putting for us , we have  appreciated reading this intelligent but complex book in which Diaz keeps confronting the double meaning of the words TRUST and BONDS , the material and the human.

                                                                                                    Anne Van Calster

                                                                                                                            January 2024