Altruists

A New York Times Editors` Choice "[An] intelligent, funny, and remarkably assured first novel. . . . [Andrew Ridker establishes] himself as a big, promising talent. . . . Hilarious. . . . Astute and highly entertaining. . . . Outstanding." --The New York Times Book Review "With humor and warmth, Ridker explores the meaning of family and its inevitable baggage. . . . A relatable, unforgettable view of regular people making mistakes and somehow finding their way back to each other." --People (Book of the Week) "[A] strikingly assured debut. . . . A novel that grows more complex and more uproarious by the page, culminating in an unforgettable climax." --Entertainment Weekly (The Must List) A Real Simple Best Book of the Year (So Far) Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2019 by The Millions and PureWow A vibrant and perceptive novel about a father`s plot to win back his children`s inheritance Arthur Alter is in trouble. A middling professor at a Midwestern college, he can`t afford his mortgage, he`s exasperated his much-younger girlfriend, and his kids won`t speak to him. And then there`s the money--the small fortune his late wife, Francine, kept secret, which she bequeathed directly to his children. Those children are Ethan, an anxious recluse living off his mother`s money on a choice plot of Brooklyn real estate, and Maggie, a would-be do-gooder trying to fashion herself a noble life of self-imposed poverty. On the verge of losing the family home, Arthur invites his children back to St. Louis under the guise of a reconciliation. But in doing so, he unwittingly unleashes a Pandora`s box of age-old resentments and long-buried memories--memories that orbit Francine, the matriarch whose life may hold the key to keeping them together. Spanning New York, Paris, Boston, St. Louis, and a small desert outpost in Zimbabwe, The Altruists is a darkly funny (and ultimately tender) family saga that confronts the divide between baby boomers and their millennial offspring. It`s a novel about money, privilege, politics, campus culture, dating, talk therapy, rural sanitation, infidelity, kink, the American beer industry, and what it means to be a "good person."