Book Review: Too Much And Never Enough by Mary Trump

Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents’ large, imposing house in the heart of Queens, where Donald and his four siblings grew up. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse. She explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office, including the strange and harmful relationship between Fred Trump and his two oldest sons, Fred Jr. and Donald.

A first-hand witness to countless holiday meals and family interactions, Mary brings an incisive wit and unexpected humor to sometimes grim, often confounding family events. She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donald’s place in the family spotlight and Ivana’s penchant for re-gifting to her grandmother’s frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trump’s favorite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer’s.

Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have sought to parse Donald J. Trump’s lethal flaws. Mary L. Trump has the education, insight, and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick. She alone can recount this fascinating, unnerving saga, not just because of her insider’s perspective but also because she is the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world’s most powerful and dysfunctional families.

My Review: 

There is little doubt that being brought up in the Trump family was not what most of us would term normal. It was a family of ruthless ambition and expectation where everyone was expected to do their bit to further the family name and achieve fortune and glory. This is certainly the picture that was painted by Mary Trump, daughter of Donald Trump's oldest brother Fred Jr, who I'll refer to as Freddy. She begins the book by talking about the awkward family reunion at the White House after Donald Trump has become President, where they sit around the table sharing awkward memories and listening to Donald talk. Mary finds herself thinking about the past as she sits there and it is the past that she talks about in detail in this book.

She talks about her grandparents and the way they chose to bring up their children. Fred was an ambitious and successful man who demanded that son Freddy follow in his footsteps to be his heir, despite Freddy not really being suited to the role. She talks about how Fred would belittle his son and never think he was good enough to do the job ot take on the responsibility, leading to Freddy caving in and leaving to try and find his own way in the world. Fred would play his kids off against each other, leading to Donald learning that beating everyone else in the family was the way to get the right attention from his father. Donald and Freddy's parents were basically emotionally absent from their kids despite being in the same house, and their so-called parenting was non existant. Bad behaviour was encouraged and tolerated in a sort of survival of the fittest way. Basically, Donald 'won' because he was able to adapt and survive it best.

The word family is pretty misleading here, in that Freddy was the one family member who seemed to have a moral compass and care about everyone else. Fine qualities in a man unless you grow up as a member of this ruthless family. The other siblings seem to have no loyalty or feeling for each other and are ready to stab each other in the back, which is shown in the way that Mary and her brother were treated after Freddy's death. I have sympathy for young Donald growing up as nobody was really there to guide him and show him his way in the world. He seemed to be left to make it up as he went along, and it is no surprise to hear tales from Mary about how Donald grew up emotionally distant from his family and his wives. It is pretty inevitable that a Trump family lifestyle would leave scars on a young boy.

 

Freddy Trump Jr's life is a bit tragic to say the least. He broke away from his family to pursue his own dreams of being a pilot and seeking his own way in life but even that failed to make him happy for long. He seemed to forever want to get that approval from his father who by now was more invested in bringing Donald through as his heir. It details the issues that Freddy had with alcohol which led to him destroying his career, his relationship and Mary's family. It is a sad story about a broken man who didn't quite have the strength to live his own life, or the fortitude to stand up to his father. Instead he seemed to gradually just break down bit by bit until his death. It is hard not to feel sympathetic for a man who was regarded as too soft to be a Trump and felt forever a failure.

 

Let me be clear about this. It is NOT a book about Donald Trump, which I believed it to be when I bought it. It is the story of his brother Freddy and his poor relationship with the rest of his family. Donald pops up occasionally but is more of a bit character than a main player. He is generally used to show the reader how Fred moulded young Donald into who he is today, and how Fred enabled Donald's attributes. I actually had sympathy for Donald at times because he just wasn't shown any love in that family as a toddler so can it really be a surprise that he struggles in personal relationships with people and copies his father in behaviour with people he doesn't like? There is a look from a professional point of view at various possible mental health disorders that Donald may have, which is professional speculation from Mary.   

Freddy's story is being told by his daughter and I get why she wanted to do this. It was quite interesting to read for the most part but I bought it thinking it was about Donald Trump from her perspective, and he wasn't the main focus of the book. I found the blurb on my copy to be a tad misleading about that. To be honest, had I known the true content, I wouldn't have bought it.

Read January 2021

2.5 stars.