I heard enough about Trust when it was out that I knew loosely what to expect from the structure and the broad strokes of the central character, a wildly rich depression-era financier, but little else. When I opened the book to start reading, I think I missed the first section title page, because I didn't realize until I got to the second section that the first had been a novel within the novel. As I read the first section without that context, I accepted it as the "truth" (as opposed to a fiction), while still knowing it would be undermined by the subsequent sections. But the book plays out in a more complicated way than I expected. (Not that I expected it to be simple. I'd read Diaz's earlier book and I could never expect something simple after that.) Each section, with its new frame of reference and new narrator, gives the reader a new perspective on the sections that preceded it. I enjoyed the first section well enough. The second was odd and stilted (the text in the text is rough and unfinished). It was the third section, told from the point of view of the private secretary to the financier, that really drew me in. It was as if suddenly the book was in full color. The final section is short and disjointed, but occasionally brilliant -- finally offering the reader a clear glimpse of the contradictory figures presented in the other three sections.
