This Week, I'm Reading...

Trust, by Hernan Diaz

If you read my post on Sunday, you know that we picked up a copy of Trust at a bookstore in Salida, Colorado on vacation recently, and I got a substantial start on it on the trip home. That’s always a good thing—to have a chunk of time to get well into a new book—and it was particularly helpful with Trust, which is one of those books that you have to learn how to read as you go. Trust won the Pulitzer Prize last year, and like many Pulitzer-winners, it’s doing something a bit unusual. I’m past halfway now, and I’m reading the third of four sections, each of them purportedly written by a different person—a character—though it’s not entirely clear who all of them are, or how they’re connected. You can forget, while reading the first section, that you’re not just reading an ordinary novel, until you recall that the “author” of that section is not the author Hernan Diaz. It’s a mysterious character named Harold Vanner. I still don’t know who he is, but I assume eventually it will make sense. One thing I find slightly annoying about Trust is that there’s hardly any dialogue. In fact, the second section reads, intentionally, like a draft rather than a finished product. Much is revealed about the fictional author by what he jots down notes about versus what he spends time elaborating upon. All of which is clever, but not especially fun to read. I’m enjoying this third section the most so far—and there’s also an intriguing question hanging over the entire novel (Trust itself) about who these people are, why they’re writing what they’re writing, and how they’re connected. I’m hoping Diaz will deliver an “aha moment” or stick the landing at the end in some other unexpected way.

What are you reading this week? Let us know in the comments section below!