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 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 first-hand witness, Mary brings an incisive wit and unexpected humour 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 favourite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer’s.

Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists and journalists have sought to explain Donald Trump’s lethal flaws. Mary 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.

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Product details

Listening Length	7 hours and 5 minutes
Author	Mary L. Trump PhD
Narrator	Mary L. Trump PhD
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com.au Release Date	14 July 2020
Publisher	Simon & Schuster Audio UK
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B08BPK1PC5
Best Sellers Rank	169 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 2 in Historical Biographies (Audible Books & Originals) 2 in Biographies of Presidents & Heads of State (Audible Books & Originals) 2 in Biographies of Politicians

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Top reviews from Australia

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Wayne Robinson

Great read.

Reviewed in Australia on 15 July 2020

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The inside story of the psychopathology of the most dangerous man in the world. If it weren’t fact, it would be a great novel, of the order of Thomas Mann’s ‘Buddenbrooks,’ in its dissection of a dysfunction of a multigenerational family.

49 people found this helpful

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Dorianne McGillivray

Well written

Reviewed in Australia on 16 July 2020

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An eye opener into the insights of this famous family.
Interesting and captivating reading to the credit of the author.

37 people found this helpful

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Amanda

Everything is Just Great

Reviewed in Australia on 17 July 2020

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I think this should be handed to every Republican card carrying member. I short reminder of where POTUS came from and where he will return (I hope). The author has done an almost impossible feat of writing about a (in)famous, living close family member. She has managed 95% to remain unbiased and non angry ( given the circumstances and provocation, she deserves a medal both for restraint and academic clarity).
I suspect there will be a few late night loo visit twitter posts about the book, not that it will have been actually read by the poster, just lambasting the niece for having the temerity to write the book.
I read this almost in one go, got nothing done in the meantime. It’s well written, almost in a conversational style, so it’s easy to read.
I would have liked a bit more about close family, about his offspring and his wives. Perhaps the author has some respecting sympathy for them and has left them be.
Read this book, you won’t be surprised really. Just awfully reassured that your gut feelings were right all along. Unfortunately. What will September 2020 bring? Will the American people wake up?

29 people found this helpful

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Kylie Rixon

Brilliant insight

Reviewed in Australia on 20 July 2020

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Mary Trump does an excellent job of explaining the damage done to a personality and behaviour by a pathological family - Donald Trump is the very predictable outcome of his family. Even if you aren’t particularly interested in Donald Trump, this book provides a clear and understandable explanation of how dysfunctional personalities and damaging behaviours are the result of being small children in environments filled with fear and humiliation and lacking any warmth or comfort. There will probably be someone in your life who went through something like this.

If you were lucky enough to have had adequate parents and didn’t grow up in a family like the one described in this book, you could be forgiven for thinking she must be exaggerating, that no parent could do this much damage. Let me assure you, this is a very accurate portrayal of the parenting style of people with undiagnosed and untreated Antisocial Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and the pathologies they create in their children.

None of this excuses Donald Trumps ongoing behaviour. He is nearly 80 years old - that’s a long time to develop some insight, address his failings, and seek treatment. His family bears the responsibility of creating his dreadful personality, but he bears the responsibility of never getting treatment for it, and continuing to put himself in situations where he can harm others.

There are many many people with personality disorders, and most of them eventually recognise that they are wretchedly unhappy and harming those around them. Many then seek treatment (or are dragged to therapy by a partner) or at least do their best to manage their illness with responsibility, trying to limit the harm they do.

If you faint at the sight of blood, you shouldn’t become a surgeon; if you are claustrophobic, you shouldn’t become a cave diver; if you are a diabetic, you shouldn’t take a job tasting lollies; if you are terrified of being shamed and humiliated by being wrong, or you consider reaching an agreement and compromising to be weakness, then you shouldn’t be in a leadership position and you certainly shouldn’t be a head of state.

28 people found this helpful

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Nick

A load of rubbish.

Reviewed in Australia on 16 July 2020

Complete fabrication, this should be in the fiction section. There are many more dangerous people in the world than Trump.

52 people found this helpful

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A MUST READ BOOK

Reviewed in Australia on 17 July 2020

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Very informative to stir a voter in the right direction at the forthcoming election.

23 people found this helpful

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DissidentPhoenix

The effects of insecure attachment writ large

Reviewed in Australia on 17 July 2020

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I did not enjoy this book. It's too scary - but also, too familiar. The childhood the Trump children experienced sounds awful. Forget, for a moment, that their family is wealthy. Childhood emotional abuse has horrendous effects, and the description of Donalds childhood rings true for me. I wonder who they would have become if only they had more secure attachment.

16 people found this helpful

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Disappointment after all the hype

Reviewed in Australia on 17 July 2020

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I read this book in a day and I kept waiting for it to get interesting. It didn't. There is a great deal about Ms Trumps parents and grandparents but not much recent stuff

15 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

CHARLIE

Yes, It Is Worth Reading and Why It Is Special Book

Reviewed in the United States on 14 July 2020

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I woke up this morning to find that the Kindle version of Mary Trump's book about her uncle, the President, had arrived.

My husband and I had several books about Trump, which he largely read out loud to me, but since his death I have gotten rid of most of them and have not ordered more. No need to go there. We all see the truth daily and I wallow in despair about him enough.

I ordered this book and will read it because it was a chance to find some truth, written by someone who actually knows things and is trained to assess them. I hoped that it was not written as an act of revenge, at least not entirely. I needed to understand what has happened to us all and a country about which I care.

I have read the prologue and will finish the book.

I am writing to say that, while some revenge may linger around the edges, this is a book worthy of reading, written by an educated fellow traveller on our disastrous trip. We should all read it because then we can at last know and understand what has happened to us.

My husband, a psych major, and I, always curious about why people act as they do, spent hours discussing what made Trump Trump. Well, here are the answers and they are more complicated than the bits of it reported in the press can explain.

It is well written, tries to be honest, and is a fascinating study of a deeply flawed "sick" man who has changed our country for good and, sadly, bad. Most importantly it answers our collective question, How Could This Have Happened.

Mary writes from our own sad point of view, with more knowledge than we possess, and with more pain than we possess, and that is saying something.

I hope you read it.

3,949 people found this helpful

K.E.

A Fascinating Look into A Dangerous Mind

Reviewed in the United States on 14 July 2020

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I read the Kindle version of this book in its entirety, and I think both Dr. Trump’s position within her family and her professional standing as a psychologist lend great credibility to the veracity of her observations. What she describes is indeed alarming, though I doubt anyone would be genuinely surprised. At the time of this writing, over 130,000 Americans are dead from a virus we saw coming and had time to face head-on, if only we had taken what we had seen happening in Italy and China throughout February 2020 seriously. Instead, we were told on February 26th “there are fifteen cases and pretty soon it’ll be close to zero”. We know now, as we should have surmised then, that this was a most dangerous deception. This is simply one example of the toxic combination of depravity and sheer incompetence that has infested our nation. An incompetence found repeatedly throughout Dr. Trump’s book, but one that no one seemingly had the courage to bring to the light of day until now. Her writing style is easy to read and simple to follow, and I commend her for this work. It was an excellent read, and one that will surely find its place in the history books when future generations look back at the horrors of today and try to make sense of it all. Bravo, Dr. Trump!

2,510 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

A much better book than expected

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 July 2020

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This is a much better book than I expected. I thought it would be a gossipy, revengeful book, probably ghostwritten in a hurry by a journalist. Instead its an intelligent, well written analysis of a pathetic man with a severe personality disorder, who grew up in an appallingly dysfunctional family ruled over by a tyrant. Mary Trump had good reason for seeking revenge, but mostly sticks to writing as a professional clinical psychologist in a case study of her infamous uncle. A severely damaged and dangerous personality totally unfit to be president. The best book about Trump I have read.

267 people found this helpful

BewBob

Some interesting nuggets, but a short, partial view

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 July 2020

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The prologue sets out Mary Trump's credentials and purpose for writing this book about her uncle (although actually it's about the wider Trump family and legacy - a family member and a holder of a PhD in clinical psychology, while at the same time recognising the criticism she can expect for doing so - "I would be painted as a disgruntled, disinherited niece looking to cash in or settle a score." Rather, she says, she felt she couldn't sit back seeing what she's seeing her uncle do and the harm he is causing (her implication, not mine).
What we end up with is a book with a varied tone. It doesn't have the political or economic detail of some of the other books on Trump available such as Fire & Fury, or The Room: Where It Happened (regardless of their slant on it): this is, for the most part, a more personal view - albeit one which acknowledges being excluded from the wider family after Fred Trump's controversial will.
At times the book strives for objectivity, at other times is highly opinionated ("created a perfect storm of catastrophes that no one is less equipped than my uncle to manage."). The final chapter in particular, clearly written very recently given its references to both Andrew Cuomo ('better and more competent, a real leader who is respected and effective and admired') and George Floyd ("I can only imagine that Donald wishes it had been his knee on Floyd's neck.')
It reads more like a celebrity biography than a political analysis - which is clearly intended.
It is, undoubtedly, interesting in giving a potted history on the Trump family history and there is a lot written about Fred Trump and his attitude towards, and future effect on, his children. The author clearly has a lot of hurt over the way her father was treated by the family and the effect it had on him. While she does not excuse her father, and is honest about a number of his actions (including drunkenly pulling a gun on her mother), it underpins much of the book, and it is difficult to think that Donald Trump's references in the past to him were a factor in writing the book.
The book is a text book example of telling not showing - so the people described are described and summarised upfront to leave no doubt on their character, values and qualities and it's most interesting insights are those which the author was not witness to - so early Donald Trump in his teen years and the development of his characteristics through his father's attitudes and his own psyche.
It's a slim book - reading on Kindle a full 25% of it's content is taken up by appendix, and while it touches on stories and episodes we may be familiar with (getting someone else to write his university entrance exams, code violations in property development) there are many things it doesn't touch: whether this is because the author feels they have been covered or because she doesn't feel she has a relevancy to speak on them (Trump's absence from military service, his comments on women, the numerous charges brought against him by women, and while there is brief mention of him surrounding himself with those weaker than himself or too cowardly to question him, there is no detail of any of those legal cases brought against his staff since entering the White House).
It's more of a snapshot than a detailed history - I actually wondered whether I had missed a chapter in the chronological leap from potential candidate to President, and there is a long gap of information - not, presumably, uncoincidental of her exclusion from the family, from Trump's early involvement with Melania to present day.
Overall? It's clear, even if he has only a fraction of the sociopathic inclinations Mary Trump claims he has, Trump would want the book banned. It's an updated version of the childhood dumping of potato on his head he apparently still festers over so many years later: an embarrassment to him. Does it really expose any more than the records Mary Trump gave to the media during their investigation of the Trump family tax investigation? Not really - it is what it is, a family member (however distant)'s opinions on Donald Trump.
It will keep Trump tweeting for a while, but ultimately? An interesting, if slight, read.

207 people found this helpful

Mary Ann Evans

An Exceptional Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 July 2020

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This is such an insightful book and so well written. Hopefully enough Americans will have their eyes opened in time before November's presidential election. Thank you so much, Mary, you may well have helped to save us all.

146 people found this helpful

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