Too Much and Never Enough

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to alcohol addiction and emotional neglect, as well as discussions of sociopathy, narcissism, and other personality disorders.

In the Prologue of Too Much and Never Enough, author Mary L. Trump describes her visit to the White House in April 2017 for a birthday celebration for her aunts. The dinner and celebration were hosted by her uncle, Donald Trump, who had been inaugurated as president of the United States that January. She goes on to explain in detail the dynamics present within her extended family: her aunts, Maryanne and Elizabeth, and her uncles, Donald and Robert. Her own father, who was the oldest son of wealthy real-estate developer Fred Trump Sr., had died more than 35 years earlier. Trump explains that the birthday celebration for her aunts lasted only two hours, about twice as much time as her family had ever spent at her grandparents’ house; the family spent “still less time with Donald than Kid Rock, Sarah Palin, and Ted Nugent would two weeks later” (8).

In the latter half of the Prologue, Trump discusses her uncle’s unconventional and controversial rise to the presidency and his brash, boastful personality.