Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

‘His kids were gone. His house was verging on foreclosure. His career was in a coffin, ignored by even the thirstiest of academic vampires.’

Meet the Alters; the father, Arthur, a failing non-tenured academic at a US college, teaching engineering rather than actually doing it; son Ethan, massively in debt and struggling to cope with life, and daughter Maggie, with no proper job, an eating disorder and a passive-aggressive personality; and Francine, their mother who died from cancer two years earlier but still remains a massive presence in everyone’s lives. This is not a happy family.

Still reeling from the fact that Francine had left all of her money, a small fortune having amassed in an investment portfolio, to his two children rather than to him (for reasons that soon become apparent) and facing the prospect of losing the family home, Arthur invites his two children to visit him so that he can ask them for help. The book moves back and forward through time, as we see Arthur and Francine’s relationship develop both before and after their marriage. This used to be a close-knit Jewish family, and there are moments of comedy throughout the book playing on stereotypes of Jewish relatives and the importance of family. Ethan and Maggie now live in New York, miles away from St Louis where Arthur had dragged the family for his job, St Louis coming to seem like a prison for everyone else. The trip back for the two becomes an opportunity for closure; Ethan tracks down Charlie, the boy with whom he had a brief fling at college but whose rejection of him has meant that he has been unable to trust anyone else since; and Maggie comes to visit the botanic garden where she had scattered her mother’s ashes after the funeral. As the book weaves its narratives, the characters become fleshed out and we learn that, actually, none of them are very likeable, but all of them are very damaged. The humour is sometimes farcical, often satirical, and the reality behind the image of the intellectual, middle-class family with two kids explodes the American dream.

There are several comic moments: Arthur’s failed attempt to help sanitary conditions in Zimbabwe ends in an outbreak of sleeping sickness; Arthur taking Ethan to a baseball game for his 10th birthday; the dating app which pairs you up by matching people with similar life traumas…. But the tone is not severe, and the satire is not biting enough to make you not care about the characters, however much you don’t actually really like them. I found myself pitying them, wanting them to find something, some closure, some peace from the family angst. Without any spoilers, whilst things don’t work out for Arthur as he would like there is, ultimately, some prospect of a light at the end of the tunnel for them all.

An enjoyable, sometimes laugh-out-loud satire of modern life in America which I did really enjoy. Andrew Ridker can write snappy prose and has a good eye for detail, and I look forward to his next book. An excellent debut from a promising writer. 4 stars.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of the book.)

The Alters are a very special kind of family. As their telling name suggests, they want to be there for the others, alter in Latin, what leaves them in a complete mess. After mother Francine’s death, Arthur runs deeply in debt and is not realising that his career is over and that it is only a question of time until his Midwestern college sets him free. His son Ethan had started a big career after college, but found his work dull und useless and finally just quit. Daughter Maggie had higher ambitions from the start, but troubles financing her work at non-profit organisations leaves her almost famished. When Arthur calls for a family reunion to save the family home, Maggie and Ethan are not sure if they want to come. And from their past, this reunion can only end in a catastrophe.

Andrew Ridker’s debut is a tour de force through a family history narrated in a hilarious tone that reminds me strongly of the classic Jewish wit and humour. The characters suffer their shortcomings, but are never humiliated. He treats them with a generous smile, knowing that they can’t actually change the way they are. He integrates stereotypes carefully so that it is a great fun to deconstruct them, starting with the family name and ending with the fact that it is money that drives the story.

The author created some quite interesting characters, even though they try to lead a meaningful life, selfless and to the benefit of others, all three of them withdraw from the world and social contacts and in the end, find themselves only circling around themselves. For me, this seems to be the most central question of the novel: how can you lead a meaningful life, that has a purpose and a lasting impact on the world. Careers do not seem to be the solution, but the absence of careers also isn’t the answer. Just as the Alters, the reader will have to figure out for himself what makes you happy and gives a meaning to your time on earth.

This book gets better (and bigger) the further you read. At first I thought I was in a small-scale (and enjoyable) Franzen-esque social satire about a dysfunctional academic family, but as the book went on I became aware of the scope of this novel. It deals not only with the difficulties of relationships but also with the concept of how to be a good human being. It examines how the attempt to be good can be compromised, misguided and even damaging to the very people you try to love or help. I enjoyed this book very much - the story is cleverly told and I cared about, (even when I didn't like), all the characters. Recommended.

I enjoyed this novel about a man and his adult children coming together after the death of his wife.

I do not envy comic novelists. Besides the challenges facing any novel writer, they have to elicit a smile, chuckle or smirk from their readers at regular intervals. Then - if and when they get it right - they face the risk of seeing their work dismissed as ‘(s)light’ fare. A case in point, in my opinion, was Andrew Sean Greer’s Less, which I greatly enjoyed and which I think really did deserve the Pulitzer, but which was slated in some quarters, including by friends and reviewers whose opinion I greatly respect.

It is therefore great news that a fresh talent has now joined the ranks of comic novelists. Andrew Ridker was born in 1991 (which makes me feel terribly old), and his debut novel The Altruists is published later this year. Admittedly, on the cynicism/bleakness scale, this novel is closer to Richard Ford than to Andrew Sean Greer, which might make it more palatable to the literati. Indeed, it’s already attracting glowing advance reviews. As for me, I admired most of it, although I find it harder to actually like it.

The protagonists of The Altruists are the Alters, a Jewish middle-class family from St Louis. The mother, Francine, haunts the novel, despite being dead for most of it. Indeed, it is her inheritance which serves as the catalyst of the plot. Incensed at the fact that her sixty-something professor husband Arthur has taken up a much younger lover whilst she is dying of cancer, Francine bequeaths a secret fortune to her two children, Ethan and Maggie. Faced with the prospect of losing his girlfriend and also his heavily mortgaged house, Arthur invites his children back to St Louis for a reconciliatory weekend, hoping to convince them to bail him out.

But Ethan and Maggie have their own problems. Ethan (whose homosexuality Arthur has never quite accepted) is out of a job, and is now living off his mother’s money in Brooklyn, whilst trying to sort out his messy love life. On her part, Maggie is a hard-headed would-be altruist, whose obsession with causes and ideals often leads her to actually overlook the needs of the people who surround her. Although Arthur’s plans seem to be failing miserably (but quite entertainingly for us readers), they do lead the Alters to come to term with their history and to understand that they are possible more like each other than they like to think.

To be honest, I found it hard to symphatize with any of the characters, who are complexly drawn but seem to have few, if any, redeeming features. If likable rogues exist, Arthur Alter is certainly not one of them. And his children are, frankly, chips off the old block. This ultimately detracted from my enjoyment of the novel. At the same time, however, there is much that is brilliant about The Altruists – it is an undeniably insightful work, it has some crisply humorous dialogue, and memorable set pieces. I particularly enjoyed the final showdown between the Alters and Arthur’s young lover, and the Zimbabwe episode feels like something out of Evelyn Waugh. If this debut is anything to go by, Ridker is certainly an author to look out for.

A very good debut.
It's well written, engaging and quite entertaining.
I liked the style of writing and the humour in this book.
The cast of characters was not really likeable but they were complex and interesting, very well written.
The plot was interesting and there's never a moment of bore.
I look forward to reading other books by this writer.
Recommended!
Many thanks to Random House UK and Netgalley for this ARC

Interesting read. You will certainly offer an opinion of both this book and of the characters.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Random House for my eARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review

Arthur Alter is a deeply deluded man. His children, Ethan and Maggie, are incredibly self absorbed and unsympathetic. They haven't been home since their mother's funeral, as they are appalled at Arthur's behaviour. Arthur, you see, started having an affair with a much younger woman just before his wife was diagnosed with cancer. His wife, Francine, saw through him, and left a small (and secret) fortune to her children . The sad truth is that Ethan and Maggie are not much better people than their father.
Ethan has spent his inheritance, and sits in his flat getting drunk, and feeling sorry for himself. Maggie is incredibly self-righteous, and humble brags about how poor she is. She plans to renounce her money, but hasn't gotten around to it.
Arthur is currently an arrogant and washed-up academic at a minor university in St Louis. The one time a student approaches Arthur for guidance, he is cruelly rebuffed. He is also a terrible cheapskate. You wouldn't think this would make for a terribly entertaining read, but The Altruists is very funny at times.
There's a hilarious set piece where Arthur spends time in Zimbabwe, pursuing a disastrous engineering project. The project has terrible consequences, which would make most people crawl under a rock, but Arthur's arrogance is undimmed.
Arthur summons his children home. They thinks it is to build bridges with them, but what he wants is to pump them for money to fund his life with his girlfriend. The girlfriend, it is made clear, is only with Arthur because of her ‘daddy issues.’ It is a really enjoyable read, although I long for a book with more likeable characters.