The memoir will add another layer to the complex and often combative Trump family saga. Fred and Mary Trump are the children of the former president’s older brother, Fred Trump Jr., who suffered from alcoholism and died of a heart attack in 1981. After their grandfather Fred Trump Sr.’s death in 1999, Mary and Fred Trump filed a lawsuit contesting his will, arguing that they had been cheated out of their inheritance by their father’s siblings.
But the siblings haven’t always been aligned publicly. Fred Trump III, who went into the family business of commercial real estate, distanced himself from his sister’s blockbuster 2020 memoir, “Too Much and Never Enough,” which told the damaging inside story of Donald Trump’s family history and deepened rifts in the family. The book alleged, among other things, that the former president paid someone to take his SAT test for college admissions, and viewed “cheating as a way of life.”
In a statement about the book released by the Trump family in 2020, Fred Trump III said that “my wife, children and I have a strong relationship with our extended family and have had no involvement or interest in the preparation of this book.” Mary Trump’s memoir was also published by Simon & Schuster, and sold more than 1.3 million copies in its first week on sale. Her follow-up, “Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir,” will publish in September and will focus largely on her relationship with her father.
Until now, Fred Trump III has largely stayed out of the fray, which makes the arrival of his memoir, just months before the November election, something of a surprise.
With this publication, Simon & Schuster aims to continue an often profitable streak of Trump memoirs, including books from the president’s supporters. In addition to Mary Trump’s memoir, the company has published a bombshell book by John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser under Mr. Trump, a memoir by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and adviser to Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, and a memoir by former Vice President Mike Pence. Through its conservative imprint, Threshold Editions, it has published books by Kellyanne Conway, who served as senior counselor in Mr. Trump’s White House, and before the 2016 presidential election, it published Mr. Trump’s campaign book, “Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again.”
