I know some people will be put off by the author's last name. But she has the right to tell her story, of her childhood and her family. And it was harrowing, to say the least.
Her father, Freddy, was the oldest, the namesake, and was supposed to carry on Fred Sr.'s dreams but he didn't want to. He wanted to become a pilot (which he did, for TWA.) His father and the rest of the family declared him a failure and did everything they could to destroy him. A raging alcoholic by the time Mary, his second child was born, Freddy struggled and struggled. Her parents divorced and her mother, who had also been rejected by the Trump family from day one (she'd been a flight attendant after all), was cold and depressed. Mary develops severe asthma which there isn't medication for yet and her mother wouldn't get rid of the family cats Mary was allergic to, and also wouldn't bring her to the hospital in the middle of the night when she woke up gasping for air, unable to breath (she would in the morning.) Freddy's physical and mental health continued to go downhill. Everyone was required to go to dinner at The Big House every week even though Fred Sr. and Freddy's brothers and sisters all seemed to despise them. (Donald was a high school student.) Mary's mother had so little money from the divorce settlement that she had to live in one of Fred's apartment buildings, and Fred refused to let the building super fix anything that broke in their apartment. When Mary's brother leaves for college Mary refuses to be left alone with the insanity that is their family and insists on going away to boarding school. Her father dies at 42. At the end of his life, after open heart surgery, his father put him to work, in maintenance in one of his buildings. But not just any old Trump building--the very same building Freddy had been given to manage at 22 when he'd proven once and for all he wasn't cut out for that work.
As an adult Mary has both gone into residential treatment for trauma twice, and also works as a psychiatrist. It makes perfect sense why someone from this background would go into that field (she specializes in trauma and psychopathology.)
This is such a powerful and important story REGARDLESS of her family's last name. In fact, I think that can make the story even more relatable--mental health issues and addiction issues can (and do!) affect everyone, even if your family is wealthy and looks shiny and perfect from the outside. The story is horrifying, heartbreaking, and I gasped out loud several times. She has the writing chops to tell this.
This book is published by St. Martin's Press, a division of Macmillan. my employer.
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