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."

• We started tracking this book on February 5, 2019.
• This book was $12.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 82 times in the past 2,387 days.
• The current price of this book is $7.99 last checked 12 hours ago.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $4.99.
• The lowest price to date was $4.99 last reached on June 29, 2025.
• This book has been $4.99 11 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $14.99 last reached on September 24, 2024.
• This book has been $14.99 11 times since we started tracking it.

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• Print Length: 319 Pages
• File Size: 26 KB