The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships

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Perhaps they assume everyone is listening to audio these days and so it doesn't matter? I don't know but it drives me insane when I have to skip entire chapters. Rask is based on the real-life (in the novel's world - I will stop adding that for fear of this review becoming as tedious as Vanner's prose) Andrew Bevel, whose late wife was called Mildred. And who I kept wanting to call Mildred Revel as my Proustian recollection of those delicious chocolates - except the coffee one - was the only good thing from the book. When an avoidant and an addict begin a relationship, a predictable pattern occurs. The avoidant gives and gives, sacrificing his own needs, but it's never enough for the love addict. So the avoidant grows resentful and seeks an outlet outside of the relationship, but at the same time feels too guilty to stop taking care of the needy person. This isn’t to say that the artful construction and structure of the book belies it’s claims to authenticity. There’s really not a moment where you feel that Neil is being untruthful or trying to polish up his image or excuse his past excesses. If anything, it feels painfully honest to a fault - even a little self-pitying at times; the phrase “I’m not the hero of this book, I’m the villain” echoes over and over through the narrative. This actually annoys me. While yes, I do have the benefit of being the detached outside observer, the fact is that there really aren’t any bad guys here. Yes, people get hurt, sometimes hurt badly… but it’s not out of malice or even self-absorbtion. What you see in The Truth are people who are well-meaning and well-intentioned but ultimately wrong for each other; square pegs convinced that they should be round and believing that if they try hard enough or find the right angle, they’ll finally fit into that round hole. The third section (and easily the strongest of the book) is written by Ida Partenza – the daughter of an Italian anarchist effectively in America as a political refugee – she is hired by Revel to write the second part of the novel as a counterbalance to the sensationalist impact of the first (which he and everyone else regards as his lightly fictionalised biography). While researching the book (to the limited permitted by Revel who wishes to tightly control the narrative) Ida finds that neither Vanner or Revel’s portrayal of Mildred seems to meet the complexity of her character but is unable to discover the true Mildred. Parts of this section are narrated closer to our present day as the now elderly Ida visits a museum made of the Revel home (where she wrote her book) and explores the archives.

As I take her hand in mine, I realize that before trauma healing, I always wanted more—more women, more success, more money, more space, more experience, more possessions. Not once did I stop and say, as I do now, “I have enough.”

The work is not interesting, provocative, intelligent or humorous. It’s definitely long, boring, unfocused and redundant. And given its misplaced knowledge-base, it arguably makes the more susceptible and ignorant readers all the dumber from its vapid revelations. Look, yeah, this is a book about narcissism and if you want to read about a guy who everybody clapped for, the most out-of-control sex addict in the room, and who smirkingly refers to the relief at being de-centered by his harem, then by all means read this, or The Wolf of Wall Street. Any patina of self-humiliation the book claims to show is buried under whatever is left of his crippled mother from being hit by the bus Strauss threw her under. The second best way to read this book might to be to do without foreknowledge of this structure, but the high level of publicity and authorial interviews makes that difficult, and so I will cover it in my review. Although the best way might be not to read it at all - of a book published at the same time, The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas does something similar but is much more accomplished.

Do we all, Bevel? The ultimate in arrogance: assuming everyone on the planet values what he values, Bevel carries on as if the financier combined with the Protestant work ethic is the final stage of human evolution. Pathetic. Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit. Some interesting perspectives on relationships, intimacy and sex that were mostly better dealt with in Modern Romance. Much like The Game, The Truth is a book that’s going to be misunderstood. People saw The Game as a how-to manual, rather than the story of a group of men who were fundamentally broken inside trying to use sexual success as a way of increasing their self worth. People will also see The Truth as a condemnation of non-monogamy and polyamory, which is a shame. See, the theme isn’t that monogamy is best and non-monongamists are fooling themselves, it’s that if you’re not emotionally healthy, no relationship is going to work.That is not to say that the themes and especially his deeper insights aren’t universal. So I don’t mean this derogatory in any way. Which leads me to the main point of this review: What exactly about this book is so mesmerizing – and so painful?