The Donald we meet in this work is the same one we already knew well from the other tell all books and the exceptionally leaky White House. The two I'd reviewed on Goodreads were by [b:Fear: Trump in the White House|41012533|Fear Trump in the White House|Bob Woodward|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1534660010l/41012533.SY75.jpg|63991585] and [b:Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House|36595101|Fire and Fury Inside the Trump White House|Michael Wolff|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1514994130l/36595101.SY75.jpg|58345679]. Both present an incompetent, oblivious man who is obsessed with his own worth and image and not interested in the fate of the nation except for how that might reflect upon him. All the while, those around him scrambled to build him up and try to mitigate the damage from his worst oversteps.
(If you believe there's such a thing as spoilers for non-fiction, you should probably stop reading this review now!)
What this book adds is that he's lived that way long before becoming President. In addition to further insider revelations (e.g. he paid someone to take the SAT exams for him), we have an intimate observer with a PhD in clinical psychology showing us the tragedy of how he became that way, and that his apparent disregard of others is often, in reality, intentional sadism. Living in a time where so many believe aberrant behavior is a function of chemical imbalance, it's refreshing to be able to see the underlying family dynamics that lead to dysfunction.
In many ways, the other members of Donald's family are like him: one-dimensional manipulators going through the motions of performing the rituals of family closeness (gift-giving, holiday celebrations, etc.), but for whom loyalty, money, and pleasing Fred Sr. are all that is important. And the closer one stands to Fred Sr., the more soulless one becomes.
Originally, Donald's older brother, the author's father Fred Jr. (always called Freddy), stood closest. He had the totality of his father's attention, but only because he was slated to be the heir of Fred's empire. Freddy was not only named after him, but got the brunt of his control and abuse. Fred controlled every aspect of his eldest son's life, ignoring all his siblings, especially Freddy's sister Maryanne, who had the misfortune to be born female. When their mother, Elizabeth, took ill for a year, the siblings had pretty much no parents at all. Donald bullied his younger brother Robert, and Freddy was unable to get him to stop. Their mother admitted she couldn't control Donald and eventually Fred sent him to military school.
Freddy wished for a life of his own. He was interested in boating and aviation but his father insisted he fulfill his assigned role. Unable to take the pressure, he tried to break away but failed and was subsequently punished for his disloyalty by being replaced by Donald as the new heir to the Trump empire. Fred Sr. liked Donald's out of control audacity and used him as sort of a proxy, financially supporting anything he tried and giving him credit where none was due. Freddy, now the designated failure and object of family scorn, took his solace in drinking heavily, eventually dying in his early 40s. Donald, propped up by his father, believed his own hype that his successes were his own doing and that there was no downside to making mistakes since his father was always there to bail him out.
A dysfunctional family's interactions, everyone going through the motions of caring about each other when it's obvious they don't, everything playing out under the control of a wealthy patriarch, much of whose success was itself the result of political connections and outright fraud, would make a great movie or TV series but it's actually the recent history of the United States. Can we trust the source? Or is this "fake news"? Mary certainly has scores to settle since her father Freddy's branch of the family was punished for their father's disloyalty. Some will believe she has fallen for the liberal agenda, but is it a political point of view that, for example, separating children from their parents and putting them in cages is wrong? Perhaps the actual division isn't conservative vs. liberal but psychopathy vs. humanity. That Mary takes a side in such a conflict isn't bias, but compassion.
The Donald she depicts doesn't contradict what other insiders have already revealed to us, but Ms. Trump adds new details. Where before, others have told us that Donald was a poor businessman, Mary puts it in perspective and shows us how Fred conspired to create the myth of his son's deal making prowess. She dispels the myth that Donald was some kind of genius to manipulate the media and gain a political following based on xenophobia and racial and cultural divisiveness, pointing out that it wasn't a technique at all. If it hadn't worked, it would have been game over because that is the only way he knows how to be. And she tells us the origin story, not of a super-villain, but of an abuse victim turned abuser, a psychological phenomenon that has long been well established.
The book is sourced, fact-checked and indexed for easy reference. There's an "acknowledgements" section, which I only point out because the family creed is that one should never acknowledge others, but take all the credit for oneself.
