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Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2023
Trust
416 pages
A brilliant, shape-shifting literary puzzle that peels back the glittering facade of American wealth to reveal the erased voices beneath.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like wandering through a hall of mirrors where every reflection alters the truth of the one before it. It is a deeply cerebral and atmospheric experience, moving at a steady, deliberate pace as it shifts through four distinct narrative voices, each peeling back a layer of a Gilded Age financial empire. The mood is opulent yet distinctly cold, steeped in the quiet ruthlessness of extreme wealth and the shadows of erased histories. The prose is a masterclass in ventriloquism, adapting its style to suit the era and ego of each narrator. It will thoroughly delight readers who love structural puzzles, unreliable narrators, and literary fiction that asks who gets to write history and at what human cost.
- Mood
- opulent
- cold
- mysterious
- atmospheric
- Tone
- cerebral
- detached
- observant
- shifting
- wry
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- the fiction of capitalism · narrative power · erasure of women · subjective truth · the illusion of wealth
- The writing
- Chameleonic and precise, shifting seamlessly from the ornate detachment of a 19th-century novel to the sharp, fragmented intimacy of a personal diary.
- The arc
- Moves from a distant, glittering fascination with wealth to a profound, quiet devastation as the hidden human cost and erased truths are finally revealed.
- Who it's for
- Lovers of literary puzzles, historical fiction with a postmodern twist, and readers who enjoy questioning the reliability of the narrator.
Content notes
- mental illness
- institutionalization
- terminal illness
About the book
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly boundless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
Description from Open Library.
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