The Altruists

Author: Andrew Ridker

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $39.99 AUD
  • : 9781787330450
  • : Penguin Random House
  • :
  • :
  • : 0.437
  • : February 2019
  • : ---length:- '22.2'width:- '13.8'units:- Centimeters
  • :
  • : 39.99
  • :
  • :
  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

  • :
  • :
  • : Andrew Ridker
  • :
  • : Hardback
  • : 319
  • :
  • : English
  • : 813.6
  • :
  • :
  • : 320
  • :
  • :
  • :
  • :
  • :
  • :
  • :
  • :
Barcode 9781787330450
9781787330450

Description

A razor-sharp, darkly funny novel from a sparkling new talentArthur 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 Altruistsis a darkly funny (and ultimately tender) family saga in the tradition of Jonathan Franzen and Zadie Smith. 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'.