Trust by Hernan Diaz

Audiobook review - Excellent

Nothing better than a good audiobook when on a road trip.

Our first audio book on the cross-country trip back East was a Pulitzer Prize winner called Trust by Hernan Diaz. This was a good listen and is one of those books you can talk about afterwards for quite some time. Having a good book to listen to is very important when we have several long days of driving ahead of us. This book kept both of us absorbed until it was time to stop for the night.

Broken into four sections, it is a story about a man and woman in the early 1900s. The first story is a novel called Bonds written by a man named Vonner. The novel traces the story of two childhoods filled with sadness and loneliness. This novel sets the stage for the three remaining sections. By far, Bonds is the most moving of the four sections of the book.

The second section is told in the voice of Andrew Bevel, a wealthy financier known but not really known by the people who surround him. He is very uncomfortable around others and is obsessed with the health and reputation of both himself and his beloved wife Mildred. We both found him to be an unlikable character compared to the others.

The third section is written by a woman who worked for Mr. Bevel as a paid biographer. She often felt uncomfortable with what Bevel asked her to write. In this section, she switches back and forth between her 70-year-old present-day self and her younger self from the 1930's.

The final section is narrated by Mildred herself. In this section she details her perspective on her marriage and life. Sometimes biting and at other times kind, she has a very different opinion on some of the facts previously stated in the book. Mildred's section was very different from the other three sections and made for a perfect ending to a twisting plot.

There is so much to unpack in this story and that is why we enjoyed it so much.   Not until the very end of the audiobook did we completely understand what had happeded at the start. To me, this book is similar to a mystery. Yet, unlike most mysteries, it was not until the very end that everything was finally revealed. And we never could have guessed the ending.

I can understand why Diaz won an award for writing Trust. It is intentionally complicated to push the reader to make assumptions. It drew me in and when my attention began to wander, something was said that brought me back in again.

This is a good book to listen to. The readers are excellent and truly do make each character come alive. If you have a long car ride coming up, or are in need of a good book to listen to while on several long walks, this would be an ideal pick.