Book Review: The Art of the Deal

By Donald J Trump

The Art of the Deal is the best, hugest, and most successful treatise on the conduct of business ever written. If you don´t happen to agree you are a stiff and a lightweight. As Trump himself frequently tells his large crowds at campaign rallies, his two favorite books are The Bible, and coming in at a distant second, The Art of the Deal. As Bill Maher aptly put it “One of them is about a perfect being who teaches humanity the right way to live, and the other one is The Bible”. Trump likes his Magnum Opus so much, in fact, that any fan who holds a copy aloft during a campaign rally will cause The Donald to stop explaining how the wall will be built and instead sign the proffered book while lavishly complementing his adoring fan. Before resuming his speech Trump will then admonish Barack Obama for his lack of leadership and urge him to read his book.  

It is all too easy to get carried away when dealing with a man whom Charles Dickens would have called “too Dickensian”. As a somewhat professional reviewer of literary works I shall attempt to lay out the sage advice that Trump deigns to share and also draw upon his own words to explain some aspects of his presidential campaign that has puzzled media pundits. Although I enjoyed reading The Art of the Deal, I would like to point out that this isn´t an endorsement of his campaign, I´m not stumping for Trump.

Born in Queens in 1946, Donald Trump has real estate in his blood. His father, Fred Trump, came from humble beginnings but managed to make it good as a real estate developer through grit and hard work, the kind of man that Republicans have worshipped since the dawn of time. Fred Trump mostly built rent controlled apartments in Brooklyn and Queens, and stayed away from the glitzy Manhattan skyline that Donald Trump set out to, quite literally if you take Trump Tower into account, remake in his own image. His father, Trump writes, was a tough businessman who didn´t much care for fripperies and wasn´t impressed by high rollers. No surprise then that his father found all the expensive marble lavished upon Trump Tower and the bi-monthly polishing of all brass railing in the building a bit too extravagant. It makes you think that if Donald Trump`s business acumen runs in the family, his penchant for over-the-top drama does not.

The first chapter of the second best book ever written is titled Dealing: A Week in The Life. Any office drone or wage slave who has given up on the dream of upward mobility may peruse these pages to learn how one of the wealthiest people in the world lived during the neon tinted days of 1986, when the book was written. Trump rises early to sip his coffee and read the newspaper, before taking the elevator down to his office (He still lives and does most of his work in Trump Tower). His days are long and filled and deal-making as well as with meetings with interesting and influential people. On a typical Friday, according to the second best book ever written, he meets with a Greek shipping magnate as well as numerous architects and contractors working for him, before sauntering down to the lobby where David Letterman awaits his arrival with a film crew in tow. A week in the life is clearly tough and hectic. Therefore it´s no wonder that, when picking the marble to be used for renovating his private apartments shortly before meeting with the shipping magnate and Mr. Letterman, Trump opts for “…as close as you´re going to get, in the twentieth century, to the quality of Versailles”. If Trump, who claims Swedish ancestry, were to find himself at a dinner party in Stockholm, he might want to tone it down a bit and say that the marble was a leftover from a previous construction job and that the quarrymen were unionized.

The surprising, and surprisingly resilient, GOP front-runner has had his fair share of controversies since he launched his campaign in late June. When confronted with adversity, Trump has consistently gone on the attack, even when a lighter touch might have been more advisable. In the second best book ever written he explains:

“I´m very good to people who are good to me. But when people treat me badly or unfairly or try to take advantage of me, my general attitude, all my life, has been to fight back very hard. The risk is that you will make a bad situation worse, and I certainly don´t recommend this approach to everyone. But my experience is that if you´re fighting for something you believe in…things usually work out for the best in the end.”

Picking a fight with Fox News after the first Republican debate might not have seemed to be particularly wise for a populist candidate, but since he perceived that the questions he was asked by Megyn Kelly amounted to a slander on his larger than life character, he saw no choice but to leap into the breach.

The second aspect of the Trump campaign that is elaborated upon in The Art of the Deal, is his reluctance to hire pollsters or any kind of political consultants. Trump is himself, and unabashedly so, when he speaks to a fired up Crowd in Jacksonville Florida or Reno Nevada. Trump writes that he places no trust in committees or marketing surveys, instead he has always relied (or so he says), on his gut instinct and what people are telling him on the ground.

“…I don´t trust fancy marketing surveys. I do my own surveys and draw my own conclusions… If I´m thinking about buying a piece of property, I’ll ask the people who live nearby about the area…I ask and I ask and I ask, until I begin to get a gut feeling about something. And that´s when I make a decision.”

After he has let you in on a week of the Trump life and laid out the elements of his philosophy, see the quotes above, prospective readers are treated to a dazzling account of successful business deals. These include buying and renovating the Commodore Hotel in New York and building a gigantic Casino Hotel in Atlantic City. I don´t know the full details about the golden haired property mogul´s business deals, but if his own account is anything to go by then he must certainly be among the most successful people in his business. Some will no doubt point out that his businesses have gone bankrupt several times, the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City that he lauds in The Art of the Deal among them. I suspect the truth might lie somewhere in between these conflicting accounts.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Art of the Deal, even if the pages were sometimes so permeated with Trumpness that it became almost cloying. The book would be ideal for someone who is learning English since the language is so simple and straightforward, with a distinct lack of verbal ostentation or flourish. That, however, isn´t what you’re after in this genre, and when it comes to giving a glimpse into a life where everything is never enough and modesty is a problem that losers are saddled with, The Art of the Deal delivers. The one thing I wouldn´t want delivered to my doorstep, though, is the special Donald Trump edition of the Cadillac Allante that GM, in all their wisdom, decided to make.