Trust by Hernan Diaz EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Author: Hernan Diaz
- Language: English
- Genre: Marriage & Divorce Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Because he had enjoyed almost every advantage since birth, one of
the few privileges denied to Benjamin Rask was that of a heroic
rise: his was not a story of resilience and perseverance or the tale
of an unbreakable will forging a golden destiny for itself out of little more
than dross. According to the back of the Rask family Bible, in 1662 his
father’s ancestors had migrated from Copenhagen to Glasgow, where they
started trading in tobacco from the Colonies. Over the next century, their
business prospered and expanded to the extent that part of the family moved
to America so they could better oversee their suppliers and control every
aspect of production. Three generations later, Benjamin’s father, Solomon,
bought out all his relatives and outside investors. Under his sole direction,
the company kept flourishing, and it did not take him long to become one of
the most prominent tobacco traders on the Eastern Seaboard. It may have
been true that his inventory was sourced from the finest providers on the
continent, but more than in the quality of his merchandise, the key to
Solomon’s success lay in his ability to exploit an obvious fact: there was, of
course, an epicurean side to tobacco, but most men smoked so that they
could talk to other men. Solomon Rask was, therefore, a purveyor not only
of the finest cigars, cigarillos, and pipe blends but also (and mostly) of
excellent conversation and political connections. He rose to the pinnacle of
his business and secured his place there thanks to his gregariousness and the
friendships cultivated in the smoking room, where he was often seen
sharing one of his figurados with some of his most distinguished customers,
among whom he counted Grover Cleveland, William Zachary Irving, and
John Pierpont Morgan.
At the height of his success, Solomon had a townhouse built on West
17th Street, which was finished just in time for Benjamin’s birth. Yet
Solomon was seldom to be seen at the New York family residence. His
work took him from one plantation to another, and he was always
supervising rolling rooms or visiting business associates in Virginia, North
Carolina, and the Caribbean. He even owned a small hacienda in Cuba,
where he passed the greater part of each winter. Rumors concerning his life
on the island established his reputation as an adventurer with a taste for the
exotic, which was an asset in his line of business.
Mrs. Wilhelmina Rask never set foot on her husband’s Cuban estate. She,
too, was absent from New York for long stretches, leaving as soon as
Solomon returned and staying at her friends’ summerhouses on the east
bank of the Hudson or their cottages in Newport for entire seasons. The
only visible thing she shared with Solomon was a passion for cigars, which
she smoked compulsively. This being a very uncommon source of pleasure
for a lady, she would only indulge in private, in the company of her girlfriends. But this was no impediment, since she was surrounded by them at
all times. Willie, as those in her set called her, was part of a tightly knit
group of women who seemed to constitute a sort of nomadic tribe.
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