Donald and Melania Trump Were Made for Each Other

In brief remarks introducing her husband, Donald Trump, at a rally last Sunday at Madison Square Garden — coming after speakers derided Puerto Rico as garbage, Latinos as promiscuous and Kamala Harris as the Antichrist — Melania Trump began by invoking “strength, courage and unity” and concluded by imagining a “shared vision” for America.

United by what? Shared by whom? It’s like she knew nothing of what came before, in the rally or in this campaign, or simply pretended none of it had happened.

The dissonance between the former first lady’s words and the carnival of insults that preceded it will surprise no one who has picked up her new memoir, “Melania.” In an author’s note, she says that she hopes to inspire readers with “universal themes of resilience, love, and the pursuit of one’s dreams.” Also, having faced so much “misrepresentation” as a public figure, Melania seeks to “set the record straight” by providing “the actual account of my experiences.” She promises to reveal “the woman behind the public persona.”

But “Melania,” which debuted atop the Times best-seller list, accomplishes none of these objectives. There are many moments when the author could share something real of herself — the challenges that shaped her, the decisions that capture her character, the tensions between her professed principles and the realities of life as a model, as first lady, as Donald Trump’s wife. But she declines nearly all of them. In this book, themes are stated rather than shown; records are not set straight but set aside. Rather than resilience, the book’s overwhelming quality is indifference.

In these pages, Melania Trump is unstintingly superficial, incapable of taking responsibility for any missteps and disconnected from anything beyond the small world she has fashioned for herself. Her infamous jacket — the one with “I Really Don’t Care. Do U?” on the back — could double as her book jacket, too.

In this account, even the people closest to Melania are two-dimensional creatures, depicted mainly through a series of superlatives. Her mother displays “innate talent and boundless creativity” and is blessed with “impeccable taste.” Her father is “confident and industrious” and enjoys an “outgoing personality.” Even her son, Barron, for whom Melania expresses fierce devotion, rates only generic descriptions, possessing “a rare combination of intelligence, charm, and diligence” and “a circle of friends, a thirst for knowledge, and a range of hobbies.”