The Altruists

Resumen del libro

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.