Too Much and Never Enough
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man is a tell-all book written by American psychologist Mary L. Trump about her uncle, President Donald Trump, and his family. It was published by Simon & Schuster on July 14, 2020. The book provides an insider view of Trump family dynamics and reveals details about financial dealings, including the author's work as the anonymous source who revealed her uncle's suspected tax fraud. The Trump family launched a lawsuit in an attempt to stop its publication but was unsuccessful in delaying the release of the book.
Background
The book's author, Mary L. Trump, a clinical psychologist, is the daughter of Fred Trump Jr., and a granddaughter of Fred Trump Sr. She has taught graduate students in the subjects of trauma, psychopathology, and developmental psychology. Mary has written a dissertation on stalking victims, conducted research on schizophrenia, and written parts of the prominent medical manual Diagnosis: Schizophrenia. Her father died at age 42 in 1981 from a heart attack induced by alcoholism.Following the death of Fred Sr. in 1999, Mary and her brother, Fred III, who would also go on to publicly criticize Donald Trump, contested their grandfather's will in probate court, claiming that Fred Sr. was suffering from dementia, and the will was "procured by fraud and undue influence" by Fred Sr.'s other children: Donald, Maryanne, and Robert. A week later, Donald, Maryanne, and Robert terminated health insurance coverage for Fred III's then 18-month-old son, William, who suffered from epileptic spasms caused by cerebral palsy. In an interview with the New York Daily News, Mary said that her "aunt and uncles should be ashamed of themselves. I'm sure they are not." The suit was settled, with William's health insurance reinstated. Donald in 2016 explained his actions: "I was angry because they sued."
After her uncle's presidential campaign, Mary Trump came into contact with The New York Times, and provided boxes of tax documents from the Trump family as an anonymous source. The documents were used for a 2018 article by David Barstow, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner that detailed financial fraud by Trump, for which the authors won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.
Barstow pursued Mary Trump with an offer to ghostwrite a book for her. He introduced her to Andrew Wylie, his agent, who offered her a multi-million dollar advance for her participation. Craig and Buettner were angry when they found out about this, and the editors of the Times forbade Barstow from writing the book, as they felt that his involvement would breach the Times ethical guidelines. Mary Trump ended up working with Jay Mandel of WME, and sold her book's publishing rights to Simon & Schuster in an auction.
Synopsis
The book takes the form of a chronological biography; while Donald Trump is the stated focal point, Mary Trump devotes significant attention to other members of the Trump family as a way to shed light on their mutual dynamics and financial dealings. Drawing on her skills as a clinical psychologist, the author attempts to provide the inner familial workings as a background from which to analyze Donald, but has avoided outright diagnosis.In Part One: The Cruelty Is the Point, the author describes the character of the family's patriarch, Fred Trump Sr., and attempts to elucidate how his treatment of his children has had a lasting impact on them. Based on recollections from family members, Mary diagnoses Fred Sr. as a "high-functioning sociopath" who sought to use and abuse all those around him for his own benefit. Donald, while observing his brother Fred Jr. being constantly criticized by their father, would adopt Fred Sr.'s attitude and behavior to avoid displays of sadness, weakness, or kindness. Mary states Fred's cruel influence ensured that Donald would have limited access to his range of emotions. Their mother, Mary, is described as a "physically and mentally challenged" subservient wife during the children's formative years as a result of osteoporosis and due to Fred's frequent verbal abuse of her and their children. Later in life, she would reveal to Mary that she was relieved when Donald was sent away to a military school at age 13, as at that point he had started to become belligerent and disobedient towards her.
In Part Two: The Wrong Side of the Tracks, the author chronicles Donald's early career. She observes that, since Fred Sr. never achieved the fame he considered deserving of his business acumen, he was happy to allow Donald to play the public face of the Trump Organization while he took care of the actual work by leaning heavily on political and other business connections. Meanwhile, Fred Jr. saw that, after Fred Sr. unfairly blamed him for the collapse of large housing projects, he began sidelining his eldest son in favor of Donald, and thus chose to leave the family business to pursue a career as a commercial pilot. The entire Trump family's constant denigration of Fred Jr.'s chosen profession contributed to his struggles with alcoholism and other issues in the 1970s, leading to both his aviation career and marriage failing. Fred Trump Jr. eventually died in 1981 at age 42 due to a heart attack in a hospital away from family, while his parents waited at home for the hospital to phone them of Fred Jr.'s death, and his brother Donald was watching a film at a local movie theater.
In Part Three: Smoke and Mirrors, the author details how, as the influence of Fred Sr. waned, Donald Trump struggled to operate his business without the knowledge and connections his father provided. Mary describes Donald as an inept businessman who could keep up appearances only due to his associates' unwillingness to tear down the façade, as they saw his notoriety as an asset. At one point Donald had to negotiate with his creditors for a monthly allowance of $450,000. Mary also focuses on how the family turned on her after Fred Sr.'s death in 1999, including cutting off her and her brother's health insurance, resulting in precarious conditions for her brother's child William. Mary decided to settle by allowing the rest of the family to buy out her partnership of a family corporation at what she now understands to be a significant undervaluation. She eventually learned the true value of her family's wealth by acting as an anonymous source in the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigation.
In Part Four: The Worst Investment Ever Made, the author provides her view of the period when Donald Trump mounted a successful campaign to become President of the United States. Mary again draws on her training as a psychologist to claim that her grandfather Fred Sr. initiated a direct line to more power actors, all enabling Donald's worst instincts to serve their respective needs. She states that, due to her uncle's psychological capacity being forcefully stopped from fully developing at a young age by his father, he remains extremely susceptible to manipulation by more capable local and foreign actors.