Tag Archives: Shaun Bythell

Longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, Trust by Hernan Diaz was was one of the nominated titles which intrigued me the most. It consists of four manuscripts related to New York financier Andrew Bevel and his wife Mildred. The first is a novella called ‘Bonds’ written by Mildred’s friend and is followed by Andrew’s autobiography, a memoir written by his ghostwriter before concluding with Mildred’s personal journal. The structure is unique and very clever, but the pay off for the reader doesn’t really happen until well into the second half when the other perspectives highlight that Andrew and Mildred are thinly disguised as characters in the novella while Andrew’s boasts sit uncomfortably alongside Mildred’s version of events. This is an elegantly written and constructed piece of metafiction which has been accurately described as a “literary puzzle”, but I wonder how many readers will see it through to the end. Continue reading →