As a Tom Perrotta fan, I enjoyed the book and its quiet snark. The desperation of “Missouri” comes through and the floundering paths of all the characters.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via Net Galley.

A satisfying family melodrama along the lines for The Nest or The Corrections. Patriarch Arthur Alter is a middle-of-the-road professor who never made tenure. He alienated his wife at the end of her life and ended up being disinherited. Facing financial troubles, he tries to reconcile with his two adult children, the beneficiaries of his late wife's estate, hoping they will float him a financial lifeboat.

In Andrew Ridker’s debut novel, The Altruists, we meet The Alter family in all of their wild dysfunction. The novel starts out with Arthur Alter contacting his two adult children, Maggie and Ethan, via letter two years after the passing of his wife (their mother), Francine. Convincing the children to come back to their childhood to reconnect as a family is the first goal, the second goal is for Arthur to get his hands on some of the large inheritance Francine left them! See Arthur was completely cut out of Francine’s will (with good reason) and now the family home is in danger of foreclosure...unless Maggie and Ethan give him money! From that point, I was 100% on the hook and I loved feeling like a fly on the wall at the Alter residence!!

I thoroughly enjoy reading novels centering around families and The Altruists is the perfect example of why! Told in the four family members perspectives and spanning decades, we get a full view of everything the Alter family has (and is) going through. I found the characters extremely realistic and the storyline original as well as entertaining! I have found it difficult to let the Alter family leave my mind and I find myself daydreaming about their outcomes—which for me is always a sign of a fantastic read! The Altruists is a 4.5 star novel that would make a wonderful book club selection! Cannot wait to see what Andrew Ridker comes out with next!

Ridker has written one of the finest novels I have read about a family, highly dysfunctional, dealing with the death of the matriarch. Despite Francine Klein's death, she is the center of the novel and as a reader I identified very strongly with her.

Her husband Arthur is a cheat, a liar and a failure. He had never been a good father but after her death, he becomes more entrenched in his own narcissistic world. He has a girlfriend, clearly there to replace Francine since he cannot live without a caregiver and needs another woman to keep him company.

Her son, Ethan, becomes reclusive and turns inward. He is no longer able to work, or do much that is normal. Daughter, Maggie, punishes herself by taking demeaning jobs and starving herself to the point of fainting. She has lost her friends and has no goals, other than turning herself towards altruistic martyrdom.

Finally they come together in a scene that is the climax of the novel, but the author manages to make this dramady so much more that even this becomes a catalyst for the 3 characters to move on and find closure.
It reminded me of "This is Where I Leave You" by Jonathan Tropper in the way the family deals with death, but within their own quirky personalities. There is drama, but always humor.

The reader is transported back to their earlier lives and the 4 are well-developed, without extraneous characters, just the necessary sketches as those around them, as they are viewed by the central characters, Somehow this is all woven together seamlessly, beautifully written. The author makes extensive use of foreshadowing, which I found made the book even more engrossing.

I look forward to recommending this to all my book groups and to those seminars that deal with grief and mourning. This was truly a marvelous read, thank you NetGalley for this opportunity. I look forward to more novels by this author.