Hernan Diaz won the Kirkus Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for his 2022 novel Trust. Now there’s a chance he might win an invitation to a celebrity wedding.
It turns out that Diaz’s book played a role in the engagement between pop star Dua Lipa and actor Callum Turner. In a profile of Turner for the British newspaper the Sunday Times, the actor revealed that he and Lipa met while having drinks before the birthday celebration of a mutual friend.
“We sat next to each other and realised we were reading the same book, which is crazy,” Turner recalled. “It’s called Trust [by Hernan Diaz] and I had just finished the first chapter and I told her and she looked at me and said, ‘I just finished the first chapter too.’ I said, ‘So we’re on the same page.’ In the movie version of it, I look up to the sky and I’m like, I hear you. I understand. The signs are loud, don’t worry. And that was really the first [moment].”
Trust tells the story of a rich New York couple in the early 20th century whose lives might not be quite what they seem. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the novel “a clever and affecting high-concept novel of high finance.”
It’s fitting that Lipa would bond with her future fiancé over literature. The singer-songwriter and actor is also a book club maven whose past picks have included Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain, Tommy Orange’s There There, Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart, and, yes, Trust.
Diaz’s novel is headed to the small screen, with Todd Haynes set to direct and Kate Winslet set to star. Surely there are still some roles available—Dua and Callum, call your agents!
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
