# The Altruists

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/andrew-ridker/the-altruists/9781784707545

JSON version (same data): https://www.bookquiver.com/andrew-ridker/the-altruists/9781784707545.json

![The Altruists](https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage/andrew-ridker/the-altruists_978-17-8470-754-5-3498ec09.webp?v=2026-09-26%2002%3A46%3A38)

- Book: [The Altruists](https://www.bookquiver.com/andrew-ridker/the-altruists) ([The Altruists.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/andrew-ridker/the-altruists.md))
- Authors: [Andrew Ridker](https://www.bookquiver.com/andrew-ridker)
- Publisher: Vintage
- ISBN: 978-17-8470-754-5
- Pages: 320
- Published: 2020-08-20
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

'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.