Trust Issues

Hernan Diaz goes big in his followup to In the Distance, but the execution falls flat

In We Read ‘Em So You Don’t Have To, I’ll let you know if the new book everyone’s talking about is actually worth the effort, or dig into the classic that’s never left your TBR shelf. Today: Hernan Diaz’s Trust.

First off, what are the critics saying about it?

Via the Rotten Tomatoes of the book world, Bookmarks

It’s a rave, folks. Good reviews, and, anecdotally, the book is selling pretty well. My guess is it will get some awards buzz later this year.

My review: Expectations are a tricky thing; if Hernan Diaz’s Trust had come out under a different author’s name, or if it had been his first book, I would probably think better of it. Unfortunately, this one comes after In the Distance, Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize nominated 2017 debut¹. In the Distance is one of the best books of the past decade or so, an inventive antiwestern that played with American myth in a truly captivating way. Is it fair to hold In the Distance against Trust? Not really, but that’s the reality of reading - there’s no such thing as a blank slate, unless you got every book you read in a plain-white Kinkos binding in an unmarked envelope. And honestly, that sounds pretty suspicious, and a lot of work to boot. 

Me having to do it to Hernan Diaz

So I went into Trust with high hopes, perhaps too high. It hurts to say, but Trust is just not all that good. As I write this, I want so badly to use the crutch that so many other reviewers use when they’re reviewing a book they didn’t like: plot summary, and praise for the author and their other book(s). Before I get to burying Hernan, I will praise him; he’s a talented writer, and the structure of the book is itself ambitious, more so than you usually get in major-publisher fiction these days. In a recent Paris Review interview, he answered a question about ‘historical fiction’ in a way that simultaneously gives me hope for his next book, makes me more disappointed in Trust, and also is what I’d like to say to every bookstore customer asking me for a historical fiction recommendation: 

Via the Paris Review