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Too Much and Never Enough
Mary L. Trump
Contributed by Reynaldo Lenzi
Content
Overview
Plot Summary
Context
Themes
Characters
Discussion Questions
Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1 The House
Chapter 2 The Great Son
Chapter 3 The Great I-Am
Chapter 4 Expecting to Fly
Chapter 5 Grounded
Chapter 6 A Zero-Sum Game
Chapter 7 Parallel Lines
Chapter 8 Escape Velocity
Chapter 9 The Art of the Bailout
Chapter 10 Nightfall Does not Come at Once
Chapter 11 The Only Currency
Chapter 12 The Debacle
Chapter 13 The Political is Personal
Chapter 14 A Civil Servant in Public Housing
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Chapter 11 The Only Currency
Summary

Fred Trump passed away ten days after he was admitted to the hospital. Sitting in the library of the House and reading the obituary that had been published in The New York Times, Robert was getting berated for telling the reporters that Fred’s estate was worth between $250 and $300 million. Maryanne admonished her brother for giving the reporters any numbers with regard to their father’s fortune. In reality and unbeknown to them at the time, the estate was worth four times as much. Eulogies given at the funeral mostly revolved around Fred’s tremendous wealth, propensity for saving money, and “his “’killer’ instinct” (Trump 105). Only Trump’s eulogy departed from the previously-mentioned themes and strayed into praise of his own greatness. The speech was so embarrassing that it prompted Maryanne to instruct her son not to allow her siblings to speak at her funeral.

Two weeks after the funeral, Mary received Fred’s will. As it turned out, her grandfather had disinherited both Mary and her brother Fritz, denying them what would have been their father’s share of the inheritance. The rest of the siblings needed Mary’s and Fritz’s signatures in order for the will to be carried out, and it fell to Rob to get them to sign. Naturally, the disinherited siblings were not going to sign anything until they figured out what was going on. They agreed with Rob to leave their grandmother out of the discussion, so as not to upset her, while they tried to resolve the situation. The attempts at resolution, however, quickly ground to a standstill, as Rob kept on insisting that everything would be fine if they just provided their signatures.

Robert maintained an amiable attitude up until his final meeting with Mary and Fritz, at which point he told them that their grandfather had hated their mother, as well as threatened to bankrupt Midland Associates if they failed to sign the will, a move that would have left the siblings burdened with taxes on money they did not have. After the encounter, Mary and Fritz contacted Irwin Durben, who had been Fred’s lawyer and was now their trustee. He advised them to sue.

Upon finding out that Freddy’s children were looking to hire an attorney, Robert became furious and broke the deal about keeping Fred’s widow out of the inheritance discussion. After hearing Rob’s version of what was happening, Mary’s grandmother called her to say that her father was worth nothing when he died.

Analysis

Trump’s self-aggrandizement and Fred’s deep-seated resentment and spitefulness are recurring themes of the book, so it comes as no surprise that Trump would deliver a speech in praise of himself at his father’s funeral, nor that his father would leave Freddy’s children out of his will. What is surprising, at least to a certain extent, is that other members of the family proved themselves to be just as shallow and greedy as Fred and Trump. While Robert does not get much mention throughout the memoir, the chapter at hand portrays him in a very unflattering light. The fact that he would insist on his nephew and niece signing a document that completely cut them off from Fred’s estate shows how similar he was to his father when it came to money. Even more surprising is the cold and inconsiderate reaction Mary had to her granddaughter refusing to sign the will that would have left her disinherited; doubly so when her granddaughter had been the only one who had stayed by her side after her husband’s death.

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Chapter 10 Nightfall Does not Come at Once
Chapter 12 The Debacle
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