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Who Could Ever Love You

By: Mary L. Trump PhD
Narrated by: Mary L. Trump PhD
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Publisher's summary

This program is read by the author.

Who Could Ever Love You is an intimate, heartbreaking memoir of a father, a mother, and a family’s exile.

Mary Trump grew up in a family divided by its patriarch’s relentless drive for money and power. The daughter of Freddy Trump, the highly accomplished, dashing eldest son of wealthy real estate developer Fred Trump, and Linda Clapp, a flight attendant from a working-class family, Mary lived in the shadow of Freddy’s humiliation at the hands of his father.

Fred Trump embodied the ethos of the zero-sum game and among his five children, there could only be one winner. That was supposed to be Freddy, his namesake, but Fred found him wanting—too sensitive, too kind, too interested in pursuits beyond the realm of the real estate empire he was meant to inherit. In Donald, Fred found a kindred spirit, a “killer,” who would stop at nothing to get his own way.

Even after Freddy’s short-lived career as a professional pilot for TWA came to an end, he never stopped trying to gain his father’s approval. Finally, at the age of forty-two, he succumbed to Fred’s lethal contempt and died alone in an emergency room, with no family by his side.

In WHO COULD EVER LOVE YOU, Mary Trump brings us inside the twisted family whose patriarch ignored, froze out, and eventually destroyed his own. Freddy Trump’s decline into alcoholism and illness, along with Linda’s suffering after their divorce, left Mary dangerously vulnerable as a very young girl.

Inadequately and only conditionally loved, there were no adults in her life except for the father she loved, but lost before she could know him; and a mother abandoned by her ex-husband’s rich and powerful family who demanded her loyalty but left her with nothing.

With searching insight, poignant detail, and unsparing prose, Mary Trump reveals the cold, selfish cruelty that has come to define the Trump family thanks in large part to her uncle, whose malignant ambition has riven our nation and threatens the world.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

©2024 Mary L. Trump, PhD (P)2024 Macmillan Audio
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Critic reviews

“By turns lyrical and stark, Mary Trump writes with honesty, anguish, and unflinching detail about growing up in a family that made a sport of destroying its own. Who Could Ever Love You lays bare the Trump dynastic traumas and demonstrates how those traumas now hold sway over all of us. Mary Trump has written a brilliant memoir.”—Molly Jong-Fast

“This memoir is the portrait of a spark—is it love, or God, or decency?—the spark inside the rare person that can grow in the hardest ground, the sandiest soil. I honestly don’t know how someone can withstand such a thoroughly poisonous stew of a family dynamic and come out the other end such an intelligent, caring and perspicacious human being. That Mary Trump exists is nothing short of a miracle.”—Aimee Mann, Grammy Award-winning musician

"Trump’s clear and concise prose shines...an astute and occasionally explosive plunge into an American dynasty’s heart of darkness."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

What listeners say about Who Could Ever Love You

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A Collection of Short Stories

It’s like a collection of short stories, told from the perspective of child, and you can hear the torture & the healing. So transparent & vulnerable. You forget she is the niece of such a villain & just fall in love with her innocence. Very well written & empowering. Many little girls will hear themselves into womanhood & the reckoning of their independence. Thank you for this journey & we all love you!!

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Surprising relatability

Mary’s L. Trump’s impeccably written family memoir Who Could Ever Love You included descriptions that made me connect so deeply to her trauma I could feel her pain viscerally. While I grew up in the same timeframe as she did, I did so in a place vastly different from the affluent world within which Mary’s family existed—myself the parentified daughter of a borderline mother and a father who disappeared on purpose leaving us on welfare and food stamps—our traumas are uncomfortably similar in some ways that had me thinking that we should perhaps get lunch someday and compare notes on essentially raising yourself with nothing but a passing shadow of parenting. I heard Nicolle Wallace of MSNBC say in an interview with Mary that there was “pain on every page” and she was spot on. It is the raw, honest, brave, and exquisitely vulnerable story of survival—akin to the wildflower that pushes its way through the cracks in the cement that is trying desperately to kill it. It gave me hope and tangible comfort in knowing I’m not alone in the struggle. Bloom on, Mary. Bloom on!

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A traumatized woman discovering her power

Dr. Mary writes a open, vulnerable account of the toxic family she grew up in. This illustrates the beginning of finding her power after a lifetime of being constantly beaten down by the people who are supposed to be loving and kind to the children in their lives. Her father was physically destroyed by this family but she’s able to see how he held onto hope, against all odds, right to the end of his life.

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Heartbreaking and Painfully Honest

I finished Dr. Trump's memoir quickly; her childhood experiences differ from my own early trauma, but her resultant feelings do not. Her story of generational hatred for family members who measure by a different metric is startling.
Her own honesty about how she felt about her own parents is revealing, honest, and therefore, likely true.
I have little more than hatred for my own mother and Dr. Trump validates me in that regard. I'm grateful.
It's heartbreaking how even she became disdainful of her father, Frederick Christ Trump, Jr., and was embarrassed by his behavior. Heartbreaking and understandable.
Had her dad been lauded as the success that he was outside his father's control, Dr. Trump would have a very, very different story to tell.
Fred Trump Sr.'s blind loyalty to his son, Donald, led to the destruction of his whole family and possibly the entire United States of America.
Some legacy.

Cain slew Abel, and family dysfunction continued from there.

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Wonderful book one of her best

Very well written short chapters I liked very much. She is a very good at writing that is her calling ❤️

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Gut wrenching road to reality

This was an hour as honest and account as I’ve ever read in a memoir. For a rider to make herself, this vulnerable is really astounding. I really felt her story. The fact that her uncle is trying to be president again with a family history like this… Well, I’m 10 times more frightened than I was before I read the book.

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Family….it’s complicated.

This is a very personal reflection on a complex relationship to a complex and cold wealthy family. I recommend all of Mary Trump ‘s books.

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Fascinating history

This was a fascinating narrative of family trauma that I expect many people could relate to. Who among us hasn’t struggled with feelings of being inadequate and unloved. We’re just fortunate not to do it in the public eye.

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A beautiful memoir

Grew up in the same area of Queens at the same time as Mary and I was struck how beautifully she described her childhood. I also grew up in an extremely dysfunctional family and her descriptions of what that felt like as a child and adolescent shook me. A wonderful memoir.

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Heartbreakingly Beautiful and Relatable

Being the same age as Mary, I delighted in the many pop culture references of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, etc. and I’m so glad she included them otherwise, I’m sure I would I have cried the entire time. As with Mary’s other two books, this book is also beautifully written. Unlike the other two, this one is deeply personal, I related so much with the trauma she endured. The circumstances were different from mine however; the hurt, the self loathing, the denial and the many years of not getting to the route of all of it were exactly the same. From the moment I saw and heard Mary on MSNBC, I was so grateful to her, that she had the courage to speak publicly and answered many of the questions I had about her uncle, the main question in the early days of his presidency being, “why is he the way he is?”

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