Born Trump: Inside America’s First Family

In this brisk, highly entertaining volume, Fox, a senior reporter for Vanity Fair and an MSNBC contributor, sets out to deliver a “dish-y” yet “well-reported” portrait of the Trump family drawn from decades of tabloid headlines and hundreds of interviews with friends, classmates, colleagues, and business associates. The book begins with a recap of the chaotic Trump presidential campaign and transition efforts. The most engaging chapters explore the privileged, emotionally complicated lives of the Trump children, who were deeply affected by their attention-craving, “narcissist” father and his very public dalliances and divorces. Ivanka, who grew up in the brightest media glare, “made a point of setting herself apart” from peers such as Paris Hilton, Fox writes, and seems to have inherited a “preternatural ability to self-promote.” Her husband, Jared Kushner, is calm and driven, though “not exactly an intellectual,” and idolizes Rupert Murdoch. Don Jr. has a colorful history of drinking and fighting. Brief chapters devoted to Eric and Tiffany (Trump’s daughter with ex-wife Marla Maples), who are less in the public eye, feel tacked on, and—except for mentions of “Camelot” and Kushner’s prized pictures of JFK—there is little insight into the Trump family’s political moorings. Then again, as Fox observes, “this is a first family with no equivalent.” This group biography is well-written, occasionally mean-spirited, and rich in gossipy detail. [em](June) [/em]