Mary Trump's tell-all memoir about her 'dangerous' uncle, President Trump, is arriving sooner than planned
President Trump is trying to slow or, implausibly, stop his former National Security Adviser John Bolton for publishing a critical memoir of his time in Trump's White House, but in many ways that book is old news. The new news is a forthcoming tell-all by Trump's niece, Mary Trump — and the Justice Department can't stop that, even under Trump's bizarre theory that every conversation he's had as president is "classified."
Mary Trump's memoir, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, was a remarkably tight-held secret until The Daily Beast disclosed the project Monday, prompting publisher Simon & Schuster to push up its release date two weeks, to July 28.
Mary Trump's book, according to its Amazon blurb, "shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world's health, economic security, and social fabric." So, not a hagiography. Trump, a 55-year-old trained clinical psychologist, "describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse" in "one of the world's most powerful and dysfunctional families," the Amazon preview adds.
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An acquaintance of Mary Trump who has read the book told Vanity Fair's Joe Pompeo that "the punch of the book, the real symbolic thrust, is about how Donald is really an outgrowth of this complex empire that Fred Sr. built — a pretty dark, win-at-all-costs environment. If there's going to be a big takeaway, it's about that emotional DNA of the family," including her deep bond with her father, Fred Trump Jr., who died in 1981.
Mary Trump's book "promises to be one of the sizzling must-reads of the summer 2020 election season," Pompeo writes, and it almost never happened. You can read more about the book's origins, from a 2018 New York Times exposé on Donald Trump's taxes and shady financial dealings, at Vanity Fair.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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