"Too Much and Never Enough" by Mary L. Trump

Yes, I read it. ;)  (I couldn't resist, lol.)

"Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man" by Mary L. Trump, is just a little more than 200 pages -- but it explains a lot about the current president of the United States -- the author's uncle -- and how his upbringing influenced the man he is today.

The book is part memoir (Mary's experience of growing up as a Trump), part Trump family history, and part psychological analysis of the current President and the strange dynamics of the dysfunctional family he (and Mary) grew up in.

(I was reminded of Ann Patchett's novel "The Dutch House," which I read earlier this year, which also focuses on a dysfunctional family whose patriarch makes a fortune in real estate. Mary refers to the Trump family home in Jamaica Estates, Queens, New York City, as "the House" (with a capital H), and as in the Patchett novel, "the House" essentially becomes a character in the story itself.)

Much as I am not a fan of the current president, I'm inclined to agree with Washington Post reviewer Carlos Lozada, who observes, "The real villain of Mary Trump’s family tell-all isn’t Donald. It’s Fred."  That would be Donald's father and Mary's grandfather, Fred Trump, whom she describes as a "high-functioning sociopath." Fred ruled his family with an iron-handed mixture of fear and neglect. (His wife, also named Mary, suffered from numerous health issues and was largely absent -- literally and emotionally -- from her children's lives.)

“Abuse can be quiet and insidious just as often as, or even more often than, it is loud and violent," Mary writes. "As far as I know, my grandfather wasn’t a physically violent man or even a particularly angry one. He didn’t have to be; he expected to get what he wanted and almost always did.” (Sound familiar?)

“In some ways, I've been extremely fortunate," Mary says in the book's prologue. "I attended excellent private schools and had the security of first-rate medical insurance for much of my life. There was also, though, a built-in sense of scarcity that applied to all of us, except Donald."

The children (aside from Donald) were trained not to ask for anything, ever -- that would mean admitting weakness.  Fred Trump may have been a multi-millionaire -- and he bankrolled Donald's businesses, far more than the President has ever acknowledged -- but Mary's parents, Fred Jr. (known as Freddy) and Linda, lived in a damp, drafty apartment in one of Fred's buildings, their requests for repairs going unanswered (to the point that Freddy wound up in the hospital with pneumonia).  When Freddy (now divorced) moved back in with his parents after going through rehab, he lived for a time in the attic of the House, sleeping on a cot amid piles of storage boxes and old toys. When Mary lost her typewriter when her student apartment was burgled, she asked her grandfather (through an associate) for an advance on her allowance to buy a new one -- and was told to get a job instead. (Her grandmother wound up writing her a cheque.)  It's telling little details like these -- as well as the touches of wry humour that Mary brings to the story -- that kept me turning the pages.

Freddy never measured up to his father's expectations -- and yet he did summon up the strength of character to leave the family business for a time and follow his own ambitions to become a pilot.  Fred never forgave his oldest son for this betrayal, and instead focused his ambitions on his middle son, Donald. It's painful to read about Freddy's sad decline into alcoholism and his premature death at the age of 42, when Mary was just 16.

After Fred Sr.'s death in 1999, Mary and her brother Fritz found themselves essentially cut out of their grandfather's will.  They sued -- and Mary later gave documents about the Trump empire that she received during that lawsuit to New York Times reporters investigating the family's finances. Their investigation showed Mary that her family's fortune was much larger than she and her brother had been led to believe.

No doubt Mary Trump wants some revenge for the way she & her brother (and, earlier, their father) have been treated by their family. But she also fears for the future of her country, and feels that her uncle has gotten away with far too much for far too long. "No one knows how Donald came to be who he is better than his own family. Unfortunately, almost all of them remain silent out of loyalty or fear. I'm not hindered by either of those."

She does have a unique perspective to add, and I'm glad she chose to tell her story.

I debated whether this was a four or five-star read. I settled on five stars on Goodreads, because I really did enjoy reading it. It's well written, highly readable and highly insightful. It explains a lot. 

This was Book #22 read to date in 2020 (Book #4 finished in July). I'm currently at 73% of my 2020 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 30 books, and am (for the moment, anyway...!) 6 books ahead of schedule to meet my goal. :) You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2020 tagged as "2020 books."  

(This isn't my #MicroblogMondays post... hoping to get one of those posted later!)