In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic
family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and
Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their
family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens
the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric. Mary Trump spent
much of her childhood in her grandparents’ large, imposing house in the
heart of Queens, New York, 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 firsthand witness to
countless holiday meals and 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 regifting 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.