“Daddy, Mom’s bleeding,” is the opening line of Mary Trump’s book Too Much and Never Enough. It is apt. She is the niece of Donald Trump and she is writing about her grandmother – his mother Mary.
This book tells the story of this family’s shocking, though still prosaic, cruelty: it is a truism that true horror is domestic. Much will be written about the men — though the women, and certainly the author, are no less interesting for their collusion.
There is her grandfather, Fred Snr, who she calls a sociopath; and her father, Fred Jnr, the oldest son. He was destroyed by his father’s expectations and died of alcoholism at 42. Then there is Donald: “Fred’s monster – the only child of his who mattered to him – [who] would ultimately be rendered unlovable by the very nature of Fred’s preference for him”.
Mary Trump is a clinical psychologist; perhaps she became one to understand her family and herself. She could be silent when Donald was only a Reality TV star and a bankrupt property developer, but now he is President, “I can’t let him destroy my country.” The personal and the patriotic collide in this book, though it will do no good. I doubt Trump fans will read it; and they know what Donald is. They like him anyway.
Mary Trump believes Donald meets all the nine criteria for narcissism, and possibly has antisocial personality disorder and an undiagnosed learning disability “that for decades has interfered with his ability to process information”. His mental illness – his condition - begins and ends with Fred Snr, a man I believe hated all his five children: except Donald the braggart, who mirrored Fred Snr’s spite back at him, and so was loved. Donald would not go the way of his sensitive older brother Fred Jnr, so he became “the killer” his father required. I understand him now, due to Mary Trump: a man who lies always is telling a kind of truth.
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“Every time you hear Donald talking about how something is the greatest, the best, the biggest, the most tremendous,” Mary Trump writes, “you have to remember that the man speaking is still, in essential ways, the same little boy who is desperately worried that he, like his older brother, is inadequate and that he, too, will be destroyed for his inadequacy. At a very deep level, his bragging and false bravado are not directed at the audience in front of him but at his audience of one: his long-dead father.” This is not that unusual for male politicians. I sense a similar yearning in Boris Johnson for the approval of the appalling Stanley.
Donald was, of course, an abandoned child; and the abandoned child finds it hard to grow up. If his father was a monster dedicated — obliviously — to the destruction of his children’s self-worth, his mother was a ghost. The Trump women inhabit this book dimly. Mary (or “Gam” to her granddaughter and namesake) collapsed with “serious post-partum complications” after the birth of her youngest child Robert. Bearing her husband’s dynasty destroyed her health. The (probably unnecessary) removal of her ovaries caused osteoporosis, and she was in agony for the rest of her life. This was Donald’s first abandonment: by his mother to a series of hospital stays, and her own private anguish. He was two years old.
Mary was, her grand-daughter writes, “unstable and needy, prone to self-pity and flights of martyrdom”. And so, “when it came to her sons, she acted as if there were nothing she could do for them”. She became “a bystander” in a family “split deeply along gender lines”. She was “depleted”. As they grew, her younger sons Donald and Robert repaid her with contempt. She made roast beef at Christmas, and they wanted roast turkey. They harangued her, and “Gam spent the whole meal with her head bowed”.
One Thanksgiving, she choked on the meal. “You okay, Mum?” Fred Jr — the sensitive, the alcoholic — asked. “As she continued to struggle, a couple of people at the other end of the table looked up to see what was going on but then looked down at their plates and continued eating”. Fred Jnr took her out to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre. “When they returned, there was a desultory round of applause. ‘Good job, Freddy,’ Rob said, as if my father had just killed a mosquito.”
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Fred Snr’s cruelty was extraordinary. He employed Fred Jnr but gave him no responsibility; when he became an airline pilot instead, he belittled him. Fred Jnr’s sister Maryanne was “a smart, ambitious girl in a misogynistic family. She was the eldest child, but because she was a girl, Freddy, the eldest boy, got all of her father’s attention. She was left to align herself with her mother, who had no power in the house. Ultimately, she did what she was supposed to do because she thought her father cared.” He didn’t; rather he kept her in poverty, though he was already a millionaire, and he helped to destroy her marriage.
Maryanne married David Desmond, who was soon unemployed. Despite a trust fund from her grandparents — the family wealth was founded on prostitution, and this is apt too — she survived on Crisco cans filled with coins from the washers in Trump buildings. Her mother gave them to her for 'laundry'. It was called 'laundry' because Fred Snr’s cruelty could not be openly acknowledged. He gave his children nothing from the trusts, which he administered; and he went through all the cheque stubs. His daughter lived on coins. “Without them she [Maryanne] wouldn’t have been able to feed herself or her son, David, Jr”. Later she hinted to her father that her husband would appreciate a job. He gave him one: as a parking attendant. Even so Maryanne told her niece: “I never challenged my father ever.” There was no point.
The family was similarly cruel to Mary Trump’s mother Linda Clapp. The family could not blame themselves for Fred Jr’s death, even as they had seen such petty cruelties as his father refusing both to mend his son’s uninhabitable flat — which Fred Snr owned — and intervening to prevent his getting a mortgage when he tried to move instead. He could not be allowed to be free. When Fred Jnr died his children were disinherited: death is a failure in this family, and failure must be punished. (They challenged the will in court and received an undisclosed amount.) Not one member of his family was at Fred Jnr’s bedside when he died. Donald was at the movies. Instead, they blamed Linda for his death. Donald later told Mary: “I think we made a big mistake continuing to support your mother.”
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Trump women survive with silence and collusion. Ivanka appears as a child climbing on her father for kisses. Mary Trump remembers her uncle Robert — a mini-Donald — saying Melania, Donald’s wife, barely spoke. Perhaps, Mary Trump suggested, her English wasn’t good? “No,” Robert replied, “She knows what’s she there for.”
Mary Trump was likewise silent; until she decided to speak. She told her grandfather she wanted to return to school after a year out. “That’s stupid,” he said. “Just go to trade school and become a receptionist”. She replied: “I want to get my degree.” Fred Snr replied, in language he bequeathed to his son: “that’s nasty”. She never told her family she is gay. She did not tell them she was getting married. Donald hired her to write a book and failed to pay her. She grew up to be a watcher, and superficially pliant.
She says her uncles always called her “honey bunch”. “I sometimes wondered,” she writes, “if either of my uncles actually knew my name.”
She is suffocated by that name. Staying in a Trump hotel she writes: “my name was plastered everywhere on everything: TRUMP shampoo, TRUMP conditioner, TRUMP slippers, TRUMP shower cap, TRUMP shoe polish, TRUMP sewing kit and TRUMP bathrobe. I opened the refrigerator, grabbed a split of TRUMP white wine, and poured it down my Trump throat so it could course through my Trump bloodstream and hit the pleasure centre of my Trump brain”.
I wonder if being disinherited from a great fortune saved Mary Trump; if you don’t get the fortune, you don’t have to collude anymore; and now she can honour her father. I also wonder if, with the publication of this book, her grandfather Fred Snr would be pleased with her at last. On publication day she sold almost 1 million copies. Would his cynicism extend that far? I think it would. She proved herself — and I write this smiling — a killer too.
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Subscribe“I doubt Trump fans will read this… they like him anyway”
And in the same way haters such as Tanya will unquestioningly believe every word despite (as well described by the last 2 paragraphs) a deep rooted for the entire Trump family, a financial grudge having been disinherited and being estranged from the family.
Funny that there is no curiosity on Tanya’s part as to why these events happened or why she has waited until now to speak out despite Donald being in the public eye for many years. I have not read the book, but from Tanya’s review it seems that Mary did not even know Donald very well at all other than that he was his father’s son.
The book may be true, it may have grains of truth in it, or it may be a complete work of fiction. But one thing that it is clearly not is objective, and nor is this review.
She has said he couldn’t speak out because of the NDA. Now she’s challenging the validity of the NDA because the settlement was based on fraudulent information about the value of the family assets.
Why the unexplained sideswipe at the “appalling” Stanley (Johnson)? Why is he appalling?
Because he “produced” Boris perhaps?
Does that go with the long running rumour, his aim is silent, when inserted between the shoulder blades? So never turn your back in his co.
Yes indeed, or so I’m told.
However C-19 seems to have cut him down, and he appears a shadow of his former ebullient self. At 16 stone 8ozs, he is clinically obese and just tempting the Reaper to scythe him down.
Perhaps it is consummatum est?
Nice. Sleep well
The sideswipe about “appalling Stanley” is the sort of ill-considered and unexplained remark that entitled people make because being themselves it’s self-evident & they don’t feel the need to explain as most people would
Curious that Mary, according to her analysis, is the only sane person in the entire family. Would be interesting to learn why she was written out of the will. Wonder if that had an impact on her, She being the only sane person among all the other family members, all of them according to her, with psychological issues. I’m not crazy, everyone else is crazy.
Well, you sound so sweet, so I’ll gently enlighten you on some other nasty bully tactics. It is called the ‘Herd Pack’ Instinct.
The silent sheep choose to silently accept. After all, more for them, or ‘safety in numbers’. However, haven’t you ever heard of her who laughs last, gets the best laugh of all. Lol! Don’t forget karma…. what goes around…finally comes around. Incidentally, I have just looked at the old group family photograph, and Melania’s nose looks ‘out of alignment’. As Donald always brags how he likes the most beautiful, I’m a little surprised! Or did she just have a clumsy day and fall down?
Anyway…. here’s another of my favourites…don’t give it out, if you can’t take it back!
I cannot be the only one, who does not have a ‘herd’ mentality. Just because the loudest voices insist one way, and the ‘sheep’ follow, just makes them look bad in my eyes. In her situation, I would ‘walk away’ and ‘disown the herd’. Pointless, to ever try to explain anything. After all, arrogant conceited loudmouths, are not really known for either their bravery, or insight. So my best advice, would be to ignore and distance. Distancing from nosey Parker’s, and unwanted loudmouths, is so easy right now because of COVID-19. See good things can definitely come out of bad. Thank you!
SHE WHO DARES THINKS!
Melania has had plastic surgery. She did this for her modelling career. It is all in the public domain under her CV when she first arrived in America.
I actually find it extremely offensive that so many left wing Trump haters assume that no woman could like him unless they are coerced. Many highly intelligent and successful women, like highly intelligent successful men.
Many women also know when they are truly loved and cared for. They will cherish that above all else. I also notice that ‘conservative’ women generally do not need to put men down but rather understand the importance of male/female dynamics. These women tend to be self assured, comfortable in their own skin and highly attractive personalities
As far as I can see, Mary Trump isn’t interested in putting all men down, just a few bullies. As for being loved and cared for, I find that difficult to reconcile with witness evidence to the contrary.
Then there was that platform appearance when Trump went to embrace his daughter and she backed out of reach with an appalled expression on her face. Body language can speak volumes. Not sure if that was the same one in which he spoke of her attractiveness and how he’d have liked to “date” (ie, have sex with) her if she were not his daughter.
These things are not about being loved and cared for, which are highly desirable behaviour. They are about humiliation and embarassment and disregard for the feelings of people whom one ought to be loving and caring for.
Melania herself has hinted that it’s his money that matters. She also re-negotiated their pre-nup agreement after Trump was elected.
As a forensic psychologist (albeit retired) I doubt if the other family members are actually “insane” (a legal concept more than anything else), although Donald shows clear signs of dementia. However, all could easily be disturbed. That could include her, but wouldn’t necessarily invalidate her book.
Her account of a tyrannical granfather intent on establishing a business dynasty certainly suggests disturbing effects on the rest of the family. The account of the choking incident alone is utterly bizarre, and suggests an extreme callousness on the part of the old man. Extreme callousness is, of course, one trait associated with psychopathy, among other disorders. I have known families in which similar things happened; they did result in disturbance (sometimes very serious disturbance) among the children and sometimes the grandchildren too.
Being written out of the will may simply be suffering the consequences of disobedience. A normal grandfather wouldn’t require such compliance, which also suggests callousness, and indeed narcisssism.
Orange man bad syndrome again.
Yawn
You need to get some new material, we get it, you hate trump
Stand by for November because you head will probably explode when trump wins again and you may need to sit in a darkened room for 4 years to compose yourself
With a dose of cod psychology from someone who became a psychologist to understand her own problems rather than treat people.
Some people are just natural behavioural scientists in the making. Even In childhood. They are the quietly confident types. They possess an enquiring mind, a limitless attention span, and soak up all the little details. Hardly surprising, this type is often drawn/enlisted/encouraged into psychology and many into intelligence.
Hey Pyschic when do I receive the excesses I have paid. Please give me a clue.
“‘Orange Man Bad,’ they say. As if, by taking ownership of this fact, it somehow invalidates it.”
https://thebulwark.com/actu…
Hahah. Sit in a darkened room… sounds like this is where this useless book came from. It adds nothing to what we know other than the fact Mary seems to blame Donald for her father’s alcoholism.
“Bearing her husband’s dynasty destroyed her health” -I think this is my own favorite piece of hyperbolic feminist tosh in this poorly written and rudderless piece of misandry.
When i first encountered the use of the name “Karen” as an adjective, i had to go to the Urban Dictionary to see what it meant. You can do the same, or – after you finish this piece, you can review Tanya Gold’s other essays. You’ll pretty much arrive at the same place.
Thanks Tanya for giving me an overview of this obviously rather deliciously sordid book, as although curious, I don’t have much desire to read it myself (I’ll take you at your word that you have reflected the writer’s words accurately). However beware of believing you are now accurately and completely informed about a family from one naturally biased and loaded account. Although I agree with you that Trump is absurdly narcissistic, you report Mary’s account as if it’s now fact. Families are complex, multi-faceted things.
oh come on, how much toe-curling nonsense do you need to hear coming from that utter shyster’s chicken-arsed mouth before you admit she might just might have more insight into him than you? You just have to look at him to see he’s a total fraud.
You didn’t read what I said. I certainly never implied that I knew more about Trump than any one else on the planet. Although I love your “chicken-arsed” – not sure what it means, but it’s going to feel mighty finger lickin’ good when I use it on the next red-haired egomaniac.
Unsure as to how much I would believe someone so willing to air family dirty linen especially when they stand to make lots of money and garner a huge amount of attention.
Isn’t everyone?
What an odious lot. Think you’re a bit hard on Stanley Johnson though
“Let he that is without sin cast the first stone” John. 8.7.
.
‘Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgement’ John 7.24
The Bible, as a bottomless pit of sophistry. Such joy!
IS ANDREW DERRICK A GOOGLE BOT? QUOTING FROM AN OLD BOOK, IS HARDLY ORIGINAL IS IT. NEXT HE WILL BE CLAIMING HE WROTE IT. LOL!
No I don’t think so. I think he is a sincere Christian.
Recently we had a slightly heated discussion as whether Christianity indulged in human sacrifice, as I maintained, (heresy trials, crusades, witch burning etc) or as he maintained just murdered/killed people.
All a bit pedantic and All Souls, and too much sophistry but mercifully tolerated by UnHerd.
Not ‘a sincere Christian’, some might say an insincere one, I prefer reluctant agnostic or devout sceptic
“Reluctant agnostic”. Then I think we maybe ‘singing from the same Hymn sheet’.
I also agree.
I do agree!
Yup. We stink. Only hope your perfect, or muck will be splattered.
Craig, come on man, we’re not on Reddit here.
I’ll support you here, my friend. Although the Unherd commenters are generally a most reasonable and informed lot (God, look at the other forums!), and I am not a great fan of Tanya’s, anything regarding Trump does seem to bring out some pretty impressive polarised odiousness.
Thank you. Unherd is something of a citadel of reason and sanity, but even this sometimes gets breached by the sound and fury mob. Although I’m not quite (pace Mark Corby) ‘a sincere Christian’, I increasingly recognise the lure of the monastic life, far from the madding crowd…
I hear you! I find myself looking wistfully at churches more and more and wishing I could find a way back to the solace, grounding and connection they gave when I was a lost teenager (still lost, but in different ways!).
Yeah – Unherd! What a wonderful apparition of sanity it is at this time. Are you having any luck drawing your friends to it? Me, not so much. I don’t think people can handle heterodox view points these days – it just confuses them.
Suspect you’re younger than me? Most people are. I don’t get the impression that the minds of my contemporaries are closed to heterodox viewpoints, but I do see that with my children’s generation (mid-20s to early 30s). This makes me less than sanguine about their future
“Most people are” – love that! You must be at least over 30…
Yes I’m older than the millenials/Gen Zs, and yes, I agree: the fear of alternative ideas – or for the woke creed to be challenged just in the tiniest way – seems to be rampant in that age group. This would seem to be a bit of a first in terms of modern Western history. A weird type of neo-conservatism (not the Bolton kind!).
During the election many Trump women flocked to Donald Trump’s side to support him. I don’t believe they would have done that if he was that bad on a personal level. I just see him as eccentric. Even his ex wives came out in support. If you hate an ex, you don’t do that.
Maybe you misunderstand the strength of the Trump women. Why are you so afraid of acknowledging that many women love a strong husband and will be his support and critic but never demean their husband or themselves by washing their linen in public.
Trump women are some of the most intelligent, charming, discreet and successful in America. They own businesses. They raise successful families. They have well thought out opinions. They just don’t see the need to shout loud from the rooftops. They believe in strong supportive families who create strong, supportive networks.
Should Mary Trump choose to show her envy, anger and vindictiveness by her indiscretion, that is her choice. It also shows the family have stood behind Mr Trump as they know Mary has done more damage to herself than she has to the family.
The described cruelty sounds a lot like my grandfather and great-grandfather, who immigrated to San Francisco in the late 1800s penniless from modern-day Slovenia. He worked extremely hard (a family story is when a nail went through his foot on a construction site, he pulled the nail out, peed on his foot, and went back to work) and raised his son the same way, literally beating him into submission. My great-grandfather believed in vampires, was deeply suspicious and untrustworthy. He did extremely well for himself, eventually owning businesses such as gas stations and donut shops. His son, my grandfather, adored his mother, Matilda, and his wife, my grandmother. No expense was spared to care for them.
To hear my baby boomer feminist mother tell it, these men were pure sociopaths, complete misogynists, unworthy of any – never mind love – respect. Their actions could not have had any relation to the difficulties of life at that time nor trying to care for and provide for their families.
I did not see such behavior from my grandfather towards my grandma or great-grandma, though I never knew my great-grandfather.
Incidentally, like Mary Trump, my great-uncle was gay, a real hero on the beaches of Normandy in WWII, and my family cared not about his sexual orientation.
All this is to say, judging our ancestors with our present-day values is getting tired. It’s tired when it comes to statues, it’s tired when it comes to history books, it’s tired when it comes to culture, and it’s especially tired when it comes to Trump.
After all. pretty thin soup, …if this reviewer is giving us the gist, … could have been cut&paste from old newspaper articles, …was expecting somewhat of depth analysis, …hear tell she’s a clinical psychology PhD? e.g. verbal/emotional abuse seems to be family speciality, apparently learned from the old man, …however it never seems to be accompanied by physical, …a characteristically feminine way of doing battle. Can we then take comfort that POTUS Donald is incapable of using the military? the Bomb?
Mary Trump is a liar. She cannot get one other family member to back one iota of this work of fiction. I am sure George Soros made sure she had a huge advance for this work of fiction.
Tanya Gold quotes Mary Trump’s motives: “I can’t let him (Donald Trump) destroy my country.”
Well yes, but then the only presidential alternative that Democrat big noises allowed American voters was Hillary Clinton!
Consider that Clinton track record of ‘Arkancides’ .A startling 50 or so suiciding friends, employees and others linked to the Clintons, the dodgy deaths somehow found by coroners to be suicide. Despite really unusual suicide methods – like a bullet (or two) in the back of the head.
Like Bill Clinton, Donald Trump is a womaniser. But he’s not a kiddy fiddler.Unlike Bill, Donald isn’t on Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Lolita Express’ plane’s manifest for 26 trips.
DJT is no saint. He’s not even a Sir Walter Scott. Five bankruptcies, presumably taking down with him a slew of mum and dad investors who had trusted him and whom unlike Scott, Trump never reimbursed.
Tanya explains: “(Trump fans) know what Donald is. They like him anyway.”
Actually, they just prefer him to Hillary. You’d have to be a Soros fan to disagree with them.
I don’t think we can quite extend the same sympathy to Melania. Unlike Mary and the rest, she chose to be a part of this family, knowing well who Donald is I’m sure. And I don’t think Ivanka fits the ‘silenced’ perspective. It’s just that her voice says the wrong things.
WELL I STAND UP FOR MELANIA. SHE WAS NOT A TRAINED PUPPET.
TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AT THE PHOTOGRAPH WITH HER NOSE OUT OF ALIGNMENT. SHE WAS A TOP MODEL. BUT ANYTHING LESS THAN PERFECT, CAN CUT A CAREER DEAD. SO NATURAL OR NOT?
I have nothing against Melania. I just don’t think she’s a victim as is implied here. That’s all.
I can imagine that some elderly isolated people will have had more attention during lockdown – courtesy of more interaction with otherwise busy family members and also more interactions with caring neighbours – than they usually experience – which might mean they feel less isolated than usual. Even having things delivered might bring more social interaction than they normally experience.