When I tried to borrow this new book from the library there were over 100 people waiting for it!

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man by Mary L. Trump, Ph.D

I decided to purchase my own copy, and I am going to summarize it below for those of you who may still be waiting for it or are curious.

For several reasons I don’t think it’s necessarily worth recommending (though I’m glad I read it). So, if you prefer. you can read my summary, and move on to other books!

Usually I don’t “spoil” books, as you know if you read my blog regularly.

Not much in this book surprised me since I follow the news and have read several other political books in the past four years! However, her story does give some insight into Donald Trump’s family, childhood, and business dealings. The author, of course, is a bit bitter towards him, and has some right to be.

Who is Mary L. Trump?

Mary is the daughter of Donald Trump’s oldest brother, Freddie who died at 42. Donald Trump’s father was named Fred, and one of the reasons this book is a bit confusing is because much of the family has the same names in slightly different formats.

Freddie was “heir apparent” to the Trump family business because he was the oldest son. But Freddie didn’t prefer business/real estate and wanted to be a pilot, which he did for awhile. But that profession wasn’t acceptable to the Trump family, and Fred was actually embarrassed his son was a “busdriver for the sky” so he quit that job and tried to work for his father. That never worked out well, he struggled with alcoholism, and other ailments, and died an early death. After his death the family never spoke of him again. He wasn’t even listed in the parents’ eventual obituaries!

Mary kept a relationship with her grandparents but eventually got into a legal battle over their wills because they cut her and her brother out.

Insight into Donald Trump’s childhood

Mary as a clinical psychologist says that Donald’s childhood was traumatic because his mom (also named Mary) was often ill and absent both physically and emotionally, so the children had no emotional caretaker; the dad was a highly-functioning socio-path who didn’t like to be bothered with his children’s needs, which he saw as a sign of weakness.

“Symptoms of sociopathy include a lack of empathy, a facility for lying, and indifference to right and wrong, abusive behavior, and a lack of interest in the rights of others.”

This seems to describe someone else as well…though she never directly makes that claim.

“In order to cope, Donald began to develop powerful but privative defenses, marked by an increasing hostility to others and a seeming indifference to his mother’s absences and father’s neglect.”

She claims that Donald was more acceptable to Fred over Freddie because Donald’s evolved personality ending up serving Fred’s purposes better.

Many examples and stories are given to support these judgements; obviously I can’t get into it all because this is a summary… 🙂

“The simple fact is that Donald is fundamentally incapable of acknowledging the suffering of others. Telling the stories of those we’ve lost would bore him. Acknowledging the victims of COVID-19 would be to associate himself with their weakness, a trait his father taught him to despise.”

Bad at Business

The other main claim of the book is that Donald Trump is actually not that good at business. He was given a fortune, never held accountable, bailed out time and time again. He does obviously have some talents well suited to business dealings, including charisma (debatable!), but the father was the true businessman even though much of his fortune was made with government housing contracts. Specifically, Donald’s casino failures are detailed. Ultimately he acted the part of the millionaire to keep getting more loans and business. Again, she gives many examples, but you will have to read the book if you want the details, or read the article in the New York Times which details it well and won a Pulitzer.

Gossipy Tidbits

Since most of the above is pretty well documented already, you may be hoping for gossipy tidbits, which I will list below what I found as the most interesting accusations:

  • To their other kids and grandchildren besides Donald, the Trumps were super cheap and would let them live practically in poverty if there was illness or other extenuating circumstances where they couldn’t work. One of the sisters only was able to feed her family because the mom snuck her the laundry coins from some of the properties each month.
  • Donald and Marla were horrible re-gifters at Christmas. The author and her brother received a glass shoe with candy, a food gift set where one jar had obviously been removed, and a leather journal that was dated two years in the past.
  • Donald hired someone to take his SATs.
  • Donald tried to “hire” this author to ghostwrite his third book. Obviously the first two were ghostwritten. But she could never get him to actually sit still and talk to her about anything even after several months. “The project had hit a wall. Besides, after all the time I had spent in his office, I still had no idea what he actually did.”
  • At his father’s funeral, all the siblings gave a tribute, but at Donald’s turn he turned it into talking about his own greatness.
  • At one point, Donald’s undertakings were so heavily leveraged that the bank had to meet with him weekly to make sure he was staying within his $450,000 a month allowance, which he had to have to continue to play the part and make more deals.
  • Once he exclaimed that the author had “a nice rack”

The book wasn’t badly written, but sometimes it was difficult to know if she was talking about a past or more recent situation. Some stories and details were given that didn’t seem super relevant. All in all, as I said above, I feel satisfied that I read it myself but don’t feel like recommending it. You may want to move on to something else; here are five books I enjoyed recently.