All in the Family

September 15, 2024
Another Trump unburdens himself. Grandson of the family's founder and nephew of the current Republican presidential candidate, Fred C. Trump III doesn't share MAGA politics but claims to be on good terms with his uncle. He attended the 2017 inauguration, visited the White House several times, and is invited to many, if not all, Trump family affairs. He maintains, not always successfully, that this is an overview of his family and life independent of his "polarizing" uncle. Donald is a major supporting character throughout, but this is also a believable memoir of Fred, now 61, who has managed a successful career outside the Trump organization but remains a member in fairly good standing of the toxic clan. He grew up in an already vast real estate empire ruled by his tyrannical grandfather who left behind four living children, including the president-to-be, who was already taking charge. A fifth sibling, the author's alcoholic father, who hated working for the grandfather, died in 1981. Except for being rich, Fred's early life was unremarkable. His accounts of other family members reveal a mixed bag, and the future president is recognizable even from childhood as self-centered and brash. Never part of the inner circle, the author does not delve deeply into Trump business details but regularly digresses to describe his uncle's behavior--generally cruel, malicious, and even racist but occasionally, unpredictably generous. But this is, in the end, the author's story, and while readers might gnash their teeth at Donald Trump's often cartoonish villainy--such as snatching more of his father's estate by disinheriting Fred and his sister--they will feel for the author's devastation at the birth of a severely impaired child and understand why the cause of caring for such children preoccupies him today. More thoughtful than most of the Trump genre, but definitely not intended for the fan base.

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September 2, 2024
In this somber debut memoir, Trump, the nephew of former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump, offers a behind-the-scenes look at the Trump family tree—and the cold machinations that left him and his sister Mary, author of Too Much and Never Enough, largely disinherited. Trump’s story is a far cry from the narrative often put forward by his famous uncle; the book is packed with juicy details of the family’s dysfunction, including the almost casual cruelty of his grandfather, and the struggles of his father, Fred Jr., who spurned the family business to become a pilot and succumbed to alcoholism at age 42. The most intense chapters deal with a financially floundering Donald Trump’s heartless scheme to cheat Trump and his sister out their father’s inheritance, sparking a brutal legal battle that saw the family cut off Trump’s health insurance shortly after the arrival of his third son, William, who was born with special needs and required significant (and expensive) medical care. Trump remains admirably forbearing, resisting insults and attacks, instead letting actions speak loudest in his workmanlike prose. It’s a vivid account of a famous family’s dynastic power plays and the collateral damage left in their wake.