Trust

by

Hernan Diaz

Trust: Book 3, Part 1 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
In 1981, following Andrew’s death, the Bevel house opens to the public as a museum. Ida has studiously avoided the building for years, but she decides to visit after she learns that the museum will now include Andrew and Mildred’s papers. Ida feels like she owes her career as a writer to the Bevels, though Mildred had been dead for years when she first met Andrew. She goes to the Bevel house and thinks about working there in the past. She remembers the service entrance she once used.
The service entrance that Ida once used reinforces the distinction that Andrew placed between himself and those less wealthy than him, whom he by and large considered inferior. That strict hierarchy defines Andrew’s view of the world. From this passage, the reader also learns that Andrew is a notable historical figure to the point that, after he dies, his house becomes a museum.
Themes
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Gender and Subjugation Theme Icon
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Quotes
In June of 1938, Ida walks to Andrew’s office building after finding a notice in the newspaper advertising a job as a secretary. When she arrives, she takes note of a towering skyscraper under construction nearby. She waits in line with dozens of other applicants. She thinks becoming a secretary will enable her to find some independence. She currently lives with her father, and they’re behind in rent and in debt. Most of the people they know are in similar circumstances.
It's June of 1938, which means that it’s the tail end of the Great Depression. The skyscraper under construction symbolizes the vast wealth disparity between people like Ida, her father, and the people they know—who are all financially struggling—and the industrialists and financiers who can afford to build skyscrapers, despite the overriding economic hardship.
Themes
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Self-Interest vs. the Common Good Theme Icon
Ida published her first book, a collection of short stories, when she was nine years old. Her father printed it. Ida wrote an essay about her father that was included in her fourth book. In that essay, she discussed her father’s disdain for the work of an idealistic poet, Arturo Giovannitti. The best intentions lead to the worst literature, Ida’s father argued. Later in life, Ida realized that her father was jealous of Giovannitti. They were about the same age, and their life stories shared striking similarities. But Giovannitti achieved renown in life, while Ida’s father languished in obscurity.
This passage establishes Ida’s father as a foil to Andrew. The poet Giovannitti achieved the kind of prominence in life that Ida’s father strived for. Andrew also achieves that kind of renown. Ida’s father, though, remains obscure. With that in mind, the novel contrasts Andrew and Ida’s father and implicitly asks whose life is “better” or more fully lived, Andrew’s life of extravagant wealth or Ida’s father’s life of “obscurity”? While some might assume the wealthy life would be the preferable one, Trust strongly questions that assumption.
Themes
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Ida’s father’s account of how he came to the U.S. is never consistent. But from what Ida can glean, in Italy, her father had become active in anarchist circles and left-wing politics. He was blacklisted as a result, which led him to leave for the U.S. Once in the U.S., he rarely ventured outside of Brooklyn. Racism against Italians was rampant in those days. Now, he takes pride in his work as a printer and disapproves of Ida’s plan to become a secretary. He thinks the job might offer Ida financial independence, but it will also be another instance of a woman being subjugated to men.
This passage reinforces the idea that Ida’s father is a foil to Andrew. While Andrew worships money, and accruing more wealth is the driving force behind all of his decisions, Ida’s father abhors the kind of wealth and economic hierarchies Andrew represents. Ida’s father also objects to the kind of misogyny that Andrew has previously demonstrated.
Themes
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Ida waits in line for an interview for the secretary job at Andrew’s office with several other women. Though there’s no sense of hostility, Ida is aware that they’re in competition with one another. She’s led inside and is amazed by the number of people who work there, all of whom are women. In the interview, Ida does a typing test and then a dictation exercise. Afterward, she’s taken back to the reception hall and waits while the tests are scored.
This passage reinforces the different economic realities that Ida and Andrew live in. Andrew is exorbitantly wealthy and has dozens of people clamoring to work for him. Ida, on the other hand, is experiencing the hardships of the Great Depression and has to compete with dozens, if not hundreds, of people for any opportunity to work.
Themes
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Ida’s father doesn’t call himself an immigrant; he says he’s an exile. He oscillates between disdain and nostalgia for Italy while finding everything about the U.S. dissatisfying. He abhors consumerism and hates finance capital, which he views as the source of injustice. He thinks money is a fiction that has no actual value. He isn’t open to hearing other opinions, and any arguments Ida tries to advance are futile. Ida feels some satisfaction in the idea that she might work for Andrew in the finance industry. When Ida tells her father that she’s going to the interview, he doesn’t respond.
This passage builds upon the idea that Ida’s father is a foil to Andrew, especially in the sense that Ida’s father views money as the source of injustice. As Andrew demonstrated in his autobiography, he doesn’t seem to have a keen sense of right and wrong and is willing to paper over gross injustices, including his family’s exploitation of enslaved Black people, in order to burnish his own reputation.
Themes
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Two days after the interview, Ida returns to Andrew’s office. Someone meets her and tells her to write a short autobiography. She makes up a story as she writes. She says that she hopes to live most of her life in the future and that each person must carve their present out of the “shapeless block of the future.” She thinks what she’s written is florid enough to attract attention but also shows some restraint. After she finishes, she’s taken to another room where four or five other applicants wait.
Ida’s phrasing about the “shapeless block of the future” previously appeared in Andrew’s autobiography, suggesting that Andrew either plagiarized his autobiography or that Ida had a hand in writing it. This passage also shows again how strenuously Ida has to compete for any chance of employment during the Great Depression.
Themes
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Ida waits for about a half hour before being taken to another room for an interview. The man who interviews her says her tests are impressive. He reads her autobiography and then asks if she genuinely wants the job or if she is applying solely out of need. Ida is surprised to hear herself echoing her father, though with a positive spin, when she responds. She says that she wants to work for a company that makes all things. And that’s exactly what money is: all things, the “god among commodities.” The man asks Ida to come back on Monday for a final interview. 
When the man who interviews Ida asks if she genuinely wants the job or is only applying out of need, he displays the kind of privileged and out-of-touch attitude that characterizes Andrew and the people in his orbit. For the interviewer, need is not a good enough motivator, and he seems to not understand that especially in times of extreme economic hardship like the Great Depression, desire can be a luxury. 
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Ida only has one picture of her mother and only knows a few facts about her. She was born in Umbria and came to the U.S. with her brother. She met Ida’s father in the U.S. and the two had Ida. She then died giving birth to a second baby, who was stillborn. Ida was seven and stopped going to school for a year. Instead, she went to the library and read novels. Ida then gradually took over the cleaning in the house, and her father didn’t find anything wrong with using child labor to uphold the status quo of gender roles.
Along with her father, the novel also contrasts Ida with Andrew. While Andrew’s family has been in the U.S. for centuries and has amassed wealth over that time, often through grossly unjust means, Ida’s family is comprised of recent immigrants to the U.S. Notably, while Ida’s father objects to Ida becoming a secretary due to what he sees as the inherent gender power imbalance of the role, he doesn’t seem to hold himself to the same standards of gender equity in his everyday life.
Themes
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Self-Interest vs. the Common Good Theme Icon
Ida returns to Andrew’s office on Monday for the final interview. For the interview, she speaks directly with Andrew. His face is blank throughout. He tells Ida that he’s glad she’s there and offers his condolences for the death of her mother. He says he knows the autobiography she wrote is fiction. He says that he wants Ida to help him manage his image, or, really, Mildred’s image. He can’t stand the rumors that have been swirling.
Andrew’s knowledge that Ida’s autobiography is fiction shows, at the very least, that he knows enough about her past to know that she’s lying. That suggests that he has been keeping tabs and doing research on Ida in a way that she had previously been unaware of, an idea that will come up again later in the book.  
Themes
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Andrew takes a book from his drawer and shows it to Ida. It’s a novel called Bonds by Harold Vanner. He says it was published last year ago and that Vanner was an acquaintance of Mildred. Andrew says the book has been a sensation because it’s about him and Mildred. And it doesn’t make them look good. It’s defamation and trash, he says, and everyone he knows has read it. He says the rumors have to be countered with facts and that he wants Ida to help him write his autobiography. He says they’ll start next week.
This passage clarifies the relationship between the first three documents in the book. Bonds is a fictionalization of Andrew and Mildred’s life while Ida is the ghostwriter for the second document in the book, Andrew’s unfinished autobiography, My Life. This third book, the memoir by Ida, contains her memories of her life when she helped Andrew write that autobiography. 
Themes
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Jack, a family friend and Ida’s sometime boyfriend, is eating with Ida’s father when Ida returns home after the interview. Ida and Jack briefly dated as teenagers but then fell out of touch. Later, Jack left for college in Chicago, which impressed Ida. Now, he’s come back after two years. He says college wasn’t worth the trouble, and now he’s a journalist. He listens enraptured to a story Ida’s father tells about a close call he had with authorities while in Italy. When Ida’s father leaves, Jack kisses Ida and says he actually came to see her. Ida says she just got a job, and Jack says that a couple of newspapers liked the articles he sent them. Ida says there’s much to celebrate and that maybe they can go out to a fancy restaurant when she gets her first paycheck.
While Jack and Ida may appear happy, this passage also points out some relevant differences between the two that may lead to conflicts in their relationship. One of the key differences is that while Ida has recently secured a job, Jack is trying to break into journalism. That fact is especially relevant considering that it’s the Great Depression. While Ida was able to navigate a field of dozens of candidates to get a job, the fact that so many people applied to the job makes it clear that employment is scarce and getting a job is no small feat.
Themes
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Ida first reads Bonds not as literature but as evidence. She tries to decipher the novel like a detective, searching for any knowledge she can find about Andrew. As she reads, though, she becomes taken with the author’s prose and the way he maps the difficult terrain between the intellectual and the emotional. Reading the book is one of the first things that makes Ida want to be a writer. She’s also taken with Helen, the stand-in for Mildred. Ida thinks that she and Helen have strikingly similar life stories. But she doesn’t understand why Vanner chose to submit Helen to such a gruesome fate at the end of the book. It’s a novel, after all, so Vanner could have written the story any way he pleased. After reading the book, though Ida knows it’s fiction, she feels like she has a glimpse into who Andrew really is.
This passage highlights the novel’s exploration of how fact and fiction relate to the truth. According to Ida, novels can provide insights in a way that nonfiction may not be able to. In Ida’s view, the fact that the author is in control of fictive works also gives their decisions a kind of moral weight. That is, how authors decide to write a story says something about their moral outlook on the world, whether they mean it to or not. Trust then implicitly asks, what are the differences between Harold, Andrew, and Ida as authors, and what do those differences say about the nature of their lives?
Themes
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