by Oliver Darcy | CNN
“Mary Trump’s tell-all book had sold a staggering 950,000 copies by the end of its first day on sale, publisher Simon & Schuster said Thursday.
That figure, which included pre-sales, as well as e-books and audiobooks, is a new record for Simon & Schuster, the company said. The book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” went on sale Tuesday [July 14, 2020] and portrays President Trump in an unflattering light.
Just two weeks ago, Simon & Schuster celebrated the success of another Trump tell-all book, that one by former National Security Adviser John Bolton. The book, “The Room Where It Happened,” sold more than 780,000 copies in its first week of sales.”
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.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary L. Trump holds a PhD from the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies and taught graduate courses in trauma, psychopathology, and developmental psychology. She lives with her daughter in New York. [Mary Trump’s photo by Peter Serling]