Rask marries highly intelligent Helen Brevoort, a character based on Bevel's wife, Mildred Howland. Rask, modeled on millionaire financier Andrew Bevel (who seeks to tell his own story in Part 2) is less a hissing serpent than a sanctimonious, entitled, free-market booster who inherits from his wealthy father and grandfather the solidly Republican belief "that self-interest, if properly directed, need not be divorced from the common good." The isolated, self-sufficient nature of speculation spoke to his character and was a source of wonder and an end in itself."
Rask "became fascinated by the contortions of money - how it could be made to bend back on itself to be force-fed its own body. The one-percenter here is Benjamin Rask, hero of the popular 1938 novel "Bonds" by Harold Vanner that comprises Part 1 of "Trust." In the go-go 1920s, Rask, who is among the country's richest men, was no lumber or railroad baron but rather a reclusive math savant adept at market manipulations that made his fortune grow exponentially. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.ĭiaz's ingenious new fiction, told in four overlapping parts, challenges conventional story lines of another favorite American theme: capitalism and the accumulation of vast wealth. Published in 2017 by Minneapolis' Coffee House Press, his western adventure slyly critiques cherished myths about westward expansion in the mid-19th century. Those unfamiliar with Hernan Diaz's remarkable debut have that novel, "In the Distance," to look forward to.
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