The Altruists

(Paperback)

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Description

A fast-paced, razor-sharp, wisecracking, big-hearted debut novel with literary clout and huge commercial appeal. 'Reading Andrew Ridker's debut novel, you soon realise you're in the presence of a new talent.' The Times Arthur Alter is in trouble. A middling professor at a Midwestern college, he can't afford his mortgage, he's exasperated his new 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.

Reviews

A whip-smart, wickedly funny and psychologically acute novel about the cost of doing good. The finale... hits the sweet spot between hilarity and pathos with particularly excruciating precision, but theres something to impress on every page. * Daily Mail *
Reading Andrew Ridkers debut novel, you soon realise youre in the presence of a new talent... Its a novel about hypocrisy; about how complex power structures make hypocrites of us all, and about why its important to accept that and love one another anyway Ridker writes in crisp, sometimes side-splitting prose. * The Times *
The Altruists, Andrew Ridkers intelligent, funny and remarkably assured first novel [establishes him] as a big, promising talent Ridkers ambitious blend of global perspective and intimate human comedy seems likely to evoke comparisons to the work of Jonathan Franzen and Nathan Hill. -- Stephen McCauley * New York Times Book Review *
[A] smart novel with an impressive balance between satire and heart. * Sunday Times *
This is a smart, knowing, tender first novel, full of immaculate comic timing and loquacious chutzpah. * Spectator *

Author Bio

Andrew Ridker was born in 1991. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review Daily, Guernica, Boston Review, The Believer and St. Louis Magazine, and he is the editor of Privacy Policy- The Anthology of Surveillance Poetics. He is the recipient of an Iowa Arts Fellowship from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The Altruists is his first novel.