Trust
(Book)

A multilayered novel that pieces together a searing portrait of a New York financial elite during the early-twentieth-century world through four discrete documents. The first is a novel written by Harold Vanner about the reluctant scion of a tobacco empire, Benjamin Rask, "an inept athlete, an apathetic clubman, an unenthusiastic drinker, an indifferent gambler, a lukewarm lover." The second is a partial memoir written by Andrew Bevel, a New York financier with a clear resemblance to the character in Vanner's novel, who seeks retribution for Vanner's fictionalization of his life. The third piece presents the memoirs of Ida Partenze, a journalist turned accomplice to Bevel's ambitions to ruin Vanner, who also seeks to undermine Bevel's marriage. The final section delivers the journal entries of Mildred, Bevel's wife, adding yet another facet to the stories-within-stories.