Who Could Ever Love You - by Mary L Trump

About the Book

"The daughter of Freddy Trump, the highly accomplished, dashing eldest son of wealthy real estate developer Fred Trump, ... Mary lived in the shadow of Freddy's humiliation at the hands of his father. Fred Trump embodied the ethos of the zero-sum game and among his five children, there could only be one winner. That was supposed to be Freddy, his namesake, but Fred found him wanting--too sensitive, too kind, too interested in pursuits beyond the realm of the real estate empire he was meant to inherit. In Donald, Fred found a kindred spirit, a 'killer,' who would stop at nothing to get his own way. ... At the age of forty-two, [Freddy] succumbed to Fred's lethal contempt and died alone in an emergency room. ... Mary Trump brings us inside the twisted family whose patriarch ignored, froze out, and eventually destroyed his own. Freddy Trump's decline into alcoholism and illness, along with [his wife] Linda's suffering after their divorce, left Mary dangerously vulnerable as a very young girl. Inadequately and only conditionally loved, there were no adults in her life except for the father she loved, but lost before she could know him; and a mother abandoned by her ex-husband's rich and powerful family who demanded her loyalty but left her with nothing"

Book Synopsis

Instant New York Times and USA Today nonfiction bestseller!

A New York Times Nonfiction Book to Read this Fall
A People Magazine Best Book of September
The Week Five Riveting Books to Take You Through September

Mary Trump grew up in a family divided by its patriarch's relentless drive for money and power. The daughter of Freddy Trump, the highly accomplished, dashing eldest son of wealthy real estate developer Fred Trump, and Linda Clapp, a flight attendant from a working-class family, Mary lived in the shadow of Freddy's humiliation at the hands of his father.

Fred Trump embodied the ethos of the zero-sum game and among his five children, there could only be one winner. That was supposed to be Freddy, his namesake, but Fred found him wanting--too sensitive, too kind, too interested in pursuits beyond the realm of the real estate empire he was meant to inherit. In Donald, Fred found a kindred spirit, a "killer," who would stop at nothing to get his own way.

Even after Freddy's short-lived career as a professional pilot for TWA came to an end, he never stopped trying to gain his father's approval. Finally, at the age of forty-two, he succumbed to Fred's lethal contempt and died alone in an emergency room, with no family by his side.

In WHO COULD EVER LOVE YOU, Mary Trump brings us inside the twisted family whose patriarch ignored, froze out, and eventually destroyed his own. Freddy Trump's decline into alcoholism and illness, along with Linda's suffering after their divorce, left Mary dangerously vulnerable as a very young girl.

Inadequately and only conditionally loved, there were no adults in her life except for the father she loved, but lost before she could know him; and a mother abandoned by her ex-husband's rich and powerful family who demanded her loyalty but left her with nothing.

With searching insight, poignant detail, and unsparing prose, Mary Trump reveals the cold, selfish cruelty that has come to define the Trump family thanks in large part to her uncle, whose malignant ambition has riven our nation and threatens the world.

Review Quotes

"By turns lyrical and stark, Mary Trump writes with honesty, anguish, and unflinching detail about growing up in a family that made a sport of destroying its own. Who Could Ever Love You lays bare the Trump dynastic traumas and demonstrates how those traumas now hold sway over all of us. Mary Trump has written a brilliant memoir."
--Molly Jong-Fast

"This memoir is the portrait of a spark-- is it love, or God, or decency?-- the spark inside the rare person that can grow in the hardest ground, the sandiest soil. I honestly don't know how someone can withstand such a thoroughly poisonous stew of a family dynamic and come out the other end such an intelligent, caring and perspicacious human being. That Mary Trump exists is nothing short of a miracle."
--Aimee Mann, Grammy Award-winning musician

"Trump's clear and concise prose shines...an astute and occasionally explosive plunge into an American dynasty's heart of darkness." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review

"With raw authenticity and bracing detail. . . [Trump] peels back the traumatic layers of her early life. . .[She] doesn't skimp on the jarring, revelatory details of her toxic family, telling her truths with lucidity. . .[A] scathing expose of the enduring fallout from a poisonous, dysfunctional family dynamic." -- Kirkus, starred review

"Heart-wrenching...devastating and beautifully painted." --People

"Vivid...telling detail." --Washington Post

"Unsparing...engrossing...franker than she's ever been about the emotional toll her family's savagery took on her." --Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Mary L. Trump is the author of the international #1 bestseller, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, and the New York Times bestseller, The Reckoning. She holds a PhD from the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University. She writes the newsletter The Good in Us and is the host of The Mary Trump Show on YouTube.