Young Donald

by Michael Bennett

Just a few minutes before, Teddy Haswell had been helping his friend Donald break into the math teacher's office. Now, limbs terminally akimbo, Teddy’s body lies in a pool of blood in Jessup Quadrangle. And at the center of the investigation at the prestigious New Jersey Military Academy is young Donald.

Surely blame for Teddy’s accidental death should not rest with him, Donald reasons. But how? Can people be convinced that Teddy took his own life? Can suspicion be cast on Stanley Wong, the Academy’s only Asian cadet? And with Teddy gone, who can Donald enlist to help him avoid blame?

From New York real-estate moguls to Hong Kong triad bosses, Donald’s web of lies soon spins further than he could have ever imagined.

Genres: Fiction

350 pages, Paperback

Published October 6, 2020

About the author

After growing up in California, Michael Bennett graduated from Wesleyan University and Columbia Law School. Since then, he has lived and worked in New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris and Washington, D.C. Some of that time was spent enriching himself on the derivatives desk of Lehman Brothers Asia, which provided the inspiration for his latest novel, Bad Banker. He is also a dedicated supporter of the Yakult Swallows baseball club.

His first novel, Young Donald, was featured in a op-ed in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

Young Donald was also featured on the Unedited podcast:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2qV8...

Reviews

[Marita Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took the day to read this and it was a good read. There are so many more characters in this that are more compelling than the title character. Even still I found myself liking the title character’s panache. I think that’s the lesson though.

I think this novel is one of those books that should be required reading like the way books like To Kill A Mockingbird or The Great Gatsby are. I like the way the author avoided low hanging fruit by declining to bash the title character and instead wrote a greater narrative interrogating American morality.

[Elaine Taylor-Klaus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Young Donald and have recommended to many. It's just so validating and truly a good giggle, too. I generally don't read anything about the man cause it's so stressful, but somehow reading this imaginary back story was strangely fulfilling. Beautifully written, clever, comical ... a seriously good read!

[Jennifer Halloran · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lucky find! A friend recommended this book to me, and I finished it in 2 days of happy reading. It’s a fascinating and really hysterical take on POTUS (soon to be ex-POTUS!) as a young man. Bennett does a great job making you care about the boys at the school, even young Donald himself. He also had me looking up all kinds of things (like was there really an “Apostrophe S case” in New Jersey?) and trying to figure out what was real and what was made-up in this very creative version of history.

[Clark Davenport · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a former student of Russian literature, I really enjoyed the author’s use of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment in this book. The students at the school are assigned the book at the beginning of the term. Then an incident occurs which leaves a number of the boys reasons to feel guilty. Each boy’s relationship to the book says something important about their feelings toward guilt and confession.

The anti-hero Donald loses his copy before he’s read even a page, and of course he feels no guilt at all. I don’t want to spoil the fates of the other boys, but in one funny passage a clueless fellow who is briefly feeling so overcome with guilt that he thinks he may vomit, puts his copy of Crime and Punishment under his pillow to prop up his head (arguably the worst possible course of action at that moment and a fantastic image).

As many people have written here, this is a funny book. But it’s also a really smart one, and you shouldn’t let the page turning quality mislead you - you need to pay attention as you read this!

[Kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are you ready to laugh until you cry? Whether you are a Trump supporter or not, this book is the most comical piece of work I’ve read in a long time. Especially with everything that has happened recently; it takes a lighthearted spin on Donald Trump’s life growing up and it’s a shocker!

[Stephen Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Bennett dives into the psychology of young Donald during his senior year at the New Jersey Military Academy. The story nicely juxtaposes a matter-of-fact narration style with insights into Donald's interior world. Over and over, Donald feels compelled to lie. As one character says, "What gnawed at him was not that Donald had lied to him [...] It was the fact that the lies were unnecessary." I especially liked the character of Donald's classmate Stanley Wong, the son of one of Hong Kong's most notorious crime families. Stanley is rather studios and, in his own way, quite honorable, which provides an interesting foil for the title character.

[Duncan Mwenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A scintillating, fast-paced read in which Bennett does an excellent job of painting a portrait of a “fictional” and flawed Donald in his youth that so accurately captures - were it anything but fiction - the foibles and character flaws of the man who was the 45th President of the United States. Bennet’s tongue-in-cheek style sucks the reader in and makes it difficult to put this novel down once you pick it up. You will laugh, cringe and cry by turns! Highly recommended.

[Cristie Underwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, this is a work of fiction, but the reader cannot help but identify the worst characteristics of our President. This timely read captures the truly selfish and entitled behavior of this very dangerous man and creates a fictional storyline around it.

[Marcus Fedder · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful and easy to read novel, quite a page-turner, funny with great characters, not just the protagonist. The eulogy is classic. For anyone missing the old Donald, this is the real stuff.

[Sanjai · Rating 5 out of 5]

A satirical account of ex-President Trump during high school at the New York Military Academy.

Reads like a coming of age "incident" for Trump, with a chapter including a visit from his late grandfather, the acceptance of his destiny from real estate tycoon to becoming the 45th president of the United States.

Scary and powerful, the reality of Trump politics, I feel uncomfortable even writing about my thoughts about this novel because I really don't know how true or false the narrative is. The last thing I want is intelligence agencies attacking my way of life over how I feel about Trump. The book includes realistic details (events, things, places, people, acts) as well as hypothetical details that can't be discussed unless written from a first hand perspective of Donald Trump himself. It seems difficult to believe that Trump would approve such a secret part of his childhood to be narrated so openly but perhaps he has come to terms with it himself and is letting the world judge on what is possibly his worst mistake.

[Louise Kellerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story combines some of my absolute favorite genres - historical fiction/political satire/boarding school story - all wrapped together in a very funny package. This book made me very interested in the whole idea of imagined biographies (which I had never considered before). I plan to read Curtis Sittenfeld’s Rodham next and see how they compare.

[Anthony Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to admit, I was surprised by how much I liked this book. I went in expecting a few laughs about high school Trump, but it's actually a very rich, engaging and complex story. It's historical fiction in the best sense that it really transports you to a specific time and place. In this case, a military school just for boys (white boys and one smarter-than-all-of-them Asian) in the 1960s. The characters around Trump are as interesting as the young sociopath himself. It's just a cool story, and since I live in Hong Kong, I especially appreciated the Hong Kong gangster storyline that's in there as well.

[Cyndy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author nails it. What more can I say?

[Noriko Rennhauser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very, very fun read. As someone else here wrote, it’s definitely weird, and it left me guessing what was real Trump history and what was made up (the note at the beginning of the book says it’s entirely made up, but that’s clearly not 100% true!). Was his mother really so absent in his life? Was his grandfather really such an important figure for him? Was there a real Jerry? I never read a novel quite like this before. It was really entertaining and I recommend it.

[Todd M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed Young Donald, a very creative historical fiction re-imagining of what the early, military school/NJ boarding school live of Young Donald might have been to make us understand the monster he is today. There he is in living color in all his repugnant glory thanks to Michael Bennett's hilarious, and yet tragic fictional story of the dysfunctional relationship between Donald and his father, Fred, with telling examples of how the fictional young Donald's lying, bullying, cheating, stealing, shirking of responsibility, and disregard of everyone around him other than himself literally destroys countless lives. I especially liked the failure of young Donald to do his English class assignment: to read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. How ironic. He would presumably have seen himself favorably if he imagined himself in Rodion's shoes (and we do know how important close Russian relationships were to become with the older real-life Donald). I finished reading Young Donald on election day, and couldn't help but write an election Haiku to commemorate:
Voting in August;
What Do We Most Yearn to See?
No More Donald Trump.

[Peter Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

How characters deal with feelings of guilt is a common theme in literature, and Young Donald provides its own interesting take on that particular theme. The main character’s reaction is no surprise. Although he is the cause of a horrible incident, he feels no guilt at all; only the desire to protect himself by any means necessary. It is how the other cadets at the school process their own guilt that makes this a fascinating novel. I think Bennett did a masterful job creating a story with a young Donald Trump at its center, which resists being a farce. Donald comes across as a fully three-dimensional character, and the story is richly told. I have been recommending this book widely to my friends, and I will be interested to see their reactions.

[Ernesto Ludman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading Young Donald today (Jan. 6) - the same day the Trump-led rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. The news and the book went together in a deeply sad but rather perfect way. As others have written here, this book is allegorical. In writing a story about the damage a student who lacks all empathy and scruples can do to a school, Bennett is really describing the toxic impact Trump has had on the country. In the story, horrible fates tend to befall anyone who get too close to young Donald. Yes, it’s a funny story as well, with many memorable lines and chuckles. But finishing the book on a day like this makes me focus on Bennett’s deeper message, about the corrosiveness on institutions that a single, totally unscrupulous person can have. On any other day, I might have given it a 4 rating. But today I feel it definitely deserves a 5.

[Monica Bose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've long been a fan of boarding school novels, but this one is uniquely juicy as it gives insight into the psychology of our leader. It was a page-turner -- couldn't put it down and was laughing really hard. We need to laugh during these nerve-wracking days before the election. There were so many fascinating and complex characters -- from Stanley the science nerd and his Hong Kong gangster family to the librarian who nurtured his love of books. Young Donald is truly imaginative -- giving us a glimpse of what our bizarre self-centered Donald might well have been like in high school. I think you will enjoy this! Pick up a copy and get in line to vote.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I’m Donald, but you guys all know me already. Or at least you should know me. If you don’t, that would be sad, because I’m one of the top-ranking cadets in this school, and I’m also a starter on the football and baseball teams.”

Well, my fellow readers, election night is upon us, and if you’re as exhausted as I am, you are probable nested up with a book in the comfort of your own home, waiting for the results to pour in. Let’s face it-every four years Americans have to put up with the usual dirty politics that encompass every exasperating presidential race; media outlets, online bloggers, and of course, the online political ads that are unavoidable. I just found out that I would be performing slave labor in a Northern Minnesota internment camp if I didn’t vote for the incumbent representative in my district.

All jokes aside under given circumstances, this has been one of the most outlandish and surreal smear campaigns I have ever witnessed, and ‘Young Donald’ is one of the most bizarrely driven political satires released in quite a while.

The premise is simple and eschews all spoilers. It’s 1963, and Donald Trump is finishing up his final year at the prestigious New Jersey Military Academy. He, along with his roommate and fellow cadet, Teddy Haswell, are sneaking around the campus library for academic purposes. Teddy is eventually found dead and and an outrageous investigation ensues. The story starts off with a fresh ‘Dead Poets Society’ prep school feel, but gradually steers to a more crime driven saga as we’re introduced to some corrupt and scandalous individuals, notably Fred Trump and the Hong Kong triad Dragon Head. I much preferred the former direction offered in the introductory chapters with he more coming of age approach, but the rest of the book was also attractive.

If you’re expecting the usual demeanor which currently carries the outspoken president, you will be somewhat surprised. Bennet refuses to go with the cynical, mocking version of Trump we’ve all seen before. He still makes xenophobic remarks and bullies his fellow classmates, but becomes more restrained and bittersweet when it comes to family matters and girls.

Not a bad book to finish the political season.

Thanks to Edelweiss and Inkshares publishing for the free ARC.

[Guillermo Franks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really fun read. I especially enjoyed the side characters, like the librarian and the headmaster dealing with his heavy alimony obligations. And the excursion into the Hong Kong underworld and ending in Saigon were fascinating. The story is a lot more than just DT in high school. Although DT is clearly the star of the show!

[Gf.bertozzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book like Young Donald is way overdue. What on earth is motivating our POTUS? Has he always been driven by the same ambitions? Guided with the same moral compass? Or has the modern world’s most fearless leader, the seeming master of improvised, chaotic control of our country, evolved his unique character more organically? These questions deserve exploration. It is exactly what Bennett seeks to do with these pages, and he succeeds brilliantly in painting a portrait of the Donald that colorfully imagines the conflicted younger version confronting an early challenge. To escape responsibility at any cost, the teenage Trump must dig deep into his well of already hardwired survival skills and manipulate everyone around him. We are left with tears in our eyes, laughing hysterically as the events unfold, with the ridiculous narrative of imagined behavior ringing all too familiar with the reality of the last four years in office. In some ways, it’s a tragic study, but this is satire at its finest!

[Stewart Ranger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a very cool find at the library. A political allegory styled as a classic boarding school story. It's a great premise and it was nicely handled by Bennett.

[Gloria Wong-Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!! I really liked this book! To me, it’s the story of the US under Trump as told through a boarding school tale set in the 60’s. Super clever. And I could relate to the story on many different levels, because I was one of the only Asians at my high school and I had a college roommate who was kind of a “young Donald” herself.

[Donna Timms · Rating 5 out of 5]

Young Donald is a real blast! It’s the story of the world’s most famous Donald lying and manipulating his way through an investigation into an incident that occurs at his military school. The story mixes real biography (Donald’s family background seems very much like the real thing described by Mary Trump in her book) with made up facts and characters in a clever way that leaves you wondering what’s real and what’s not. It’s the best debut novel I have read in awhile.

[Maria Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely hilarious book that takes you on a page-turning ride through The Donald as a scheming and manipulative senior at a New York area military school. It's fiction, but I ended up feeling like I had learned something about him.

[Alastair Durdunji · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very fun read that leaves you guessing what’s maybe real biography (I think Trump actually went to military school?) and what’s invented. Bennett manages to capture the horribleness of the Trump we all know, but at the same time, by the end of the story, he made me feel some sympathy for Trump. That’s not an easy trick to pull off since, before even opening the book, I already knew I hated the main character. The writing is very self-assured for a first novel and, as mentioned by many people here, it’s really funny.

[Nok Wattanachai · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clever, witty and smart story that made me really care about the characters. My favorites were Mrs. Duncannon, Stanley and Jerry. All characters whose lives are made worse by their interaction with Donald. Just like what happens to everyone in the real Trump’s orbit! Waiting for the movie now.

[Ben Takeda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book because of the cover (yeah, yeah, I know you’re not supposed to do that...), and it turns out the cover sets the perfect tone for the story. The specter of the man young Donald will become looms over this story just like in the silhouette image on the cover. It’s an interesting mash-up of genres - a character study that reads like a page turning suspense novel. A very fun and interesting read!

[Russell Shapiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was reluctant to try this book after a friend recommended it, because I felt Trumped-out. But it's a hoot. You can read it for the laughs, for an intriguing boarding school story, or for the political aspects. Bennet leaves it to the reader to decide how to read this novel.

[Chieko Kriss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had a great time reading a preview copy of this book. Really strong characters, and had me laughing the whole time. Excited to see who plays young Donald in the movie version! Highly recommend it.