Halfway through the Mary Trump book

It is beautifully written. I might have a bias, as I hate Donald's Trump a great deal but also because she is a clinical psychologist and I work in behavioral health also. When we look at a human being and their behaviors, we note that a lot of these behaviors are programmed into the individual during their early formative years.

I never knew that Donald Trump's mother was as crazy and bizarre as she is in this book. Donald Trump did not have a mother. He had a woman living in the same house who did not believe that she had any right to speak to him about his life, and she was often found wandering around mumbling to herself.

Donald Trump did not have a normal father either, but was raised by a sociopath. During the childhood years, they saw each other for minutes at a time, and the process by which he was anointed by his father at age 18 is described very well.

My father is a Fortune 500 executive, or was, rather. Through him, I saw some really well-off families that functioned the way the Trumps do. There is a patriarch or matriarch, a favorite child, and the rest of the family just sits around and tries to get free rent or to get their groceries and healthcare paid for by the family.

Mary's father sat in the attic in her grandfather's house for years nursing his alcoholism, in a toxic atmosphere that triggered him constantly. He was unable to leave the family. He was unable to stop wanting his father's approval, which he failed to obtain because of his rebelliousness and then his alcoholism.

It's kind of a sad book. But the writing is so lovely.