While one book, “Trust” essentially comprises four sections, also known as novels. Diaz spoke about his latest novel, “Trust,” analyzing its deeper meaning and how it discusses contemporary issues that relate to the world’s economic system. Mansfield Public Library is known for hosting author talks virtually across 37 states, presenting acclaimed authors to talk about their most popular books. 27, Mansfield Public Library hosted a special virtual event featuring the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award, Hernan Diaz. Thank you Pan Macmillan Australia for our reading copy.On Tuesday Sept. We expect Trust may be another award winner! Hernán Diaz’s debut novel In the Distance was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, as well as the winner of the Saroyan International Prize, the Cabell Award, the Prix Page America, and the New American Voices Award. How much are we willing to pay to maintain illusions of wealth and individualism? When can we cover up mistakes and when might our lives read like fictions others have crafted? The unreliability of the narrators is unsettling and powerful, drawing us in to reflect on the characters’ dark pasts and questionable choices.ĭiaz delivers a compulsive, razor-sharp indictment of capitalism, class and greed. Trust is both a moral quality and a financial tool, and in this novel we consider whether wealth and morals can truly marry.

The opening narrator pays homage to Edith Wharton, the most discerning observer of Manhattan high society.ĭiaz toys with the trust that readers place in an author, but also with the reliability of our own narration of our lives and our society. Presented with a novel within a novel, a historical manuscript, a memoir and a journal, readers appreciate that the agency of storytelling comes with responsibility. They have an immense fortune but, as we see from multiple perspectives, it has come at a cost, and with their power comes the ability to distort reality.Īs Diaz has explained, his intention was to recruit the reader as a ‘textual detective’. Benjamin and Helen Rask are a couple known by everyone in New York in the roaring 20s and the Great Depression he a legendary Wall St tycoon and her a worldly philanthropist, the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Don’t be deterred by the somewhat vanilla opening – as this constantly surprising novel unfolds, Trust challenges the fictions that often become history, inviting readers on a quest for the truth, forcing us to carefully consider each version of a myth we are told. Wow, we loved this formally-inventive literary puzzle.

Trust book diaz