Trust

Rounded up. While the sentences were strong and the characters of the two middle sections were mostly interesting, the structure of this novel bothered me. The whole first section, which purports to be a novel itself, while compelling by itself, isn't needed for the whole. The book, IMO, would have been stronger if this “libelous” fictional biography of Andrew Bevel and his wife had simply been referred to in the middle two sections, rather than present in its entirety. Likewise, the last section feels a bit like an epilogue, where a few questions were answered, but because the style was so different from the earlier parts, it fell flat for me. Even the second section, which tells much of the story from Bevel's point of view is problematic because of the choice to present it as if it were a draft of the final piece, which markings for where additional material is needed. As a whole, though, the book does paint a portrait of the crazy financial happenings of the 1920s, so I'm glad I read it.