‘He Is and Always Will Be a Terrified Little Boy’

Mary Trump has not indicted her uncle. She has indicted the whole family. And that could give it a “seismic imprint.”

Donald Trump is the damaged product of an absent mother and a sociopathic father.

That’s in essence Mary Trump’s assessment in her ultra-anticipated instant bestseller that’s due out Tuesday—Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.

For anybody who’s done the reading these last five years—from Wayne Barrett’s biography that was published in 1992 to Gwenda Blair’s multigenerational study from 2000 to psychology experts’ more recent efforts to explain this president—it’s a takeaway that’s not altogether unfamiliar. And the glut of books about Trump and his aberrant administration has contributed almost inevitably to a tendency to treat even the most hyped fresh releases as cash-grab ephemera to speed-read for damning tidbits and just as quickly forget amid the ruthless whirl of crises. Continue reading.