{"product_id":"2940171793180","title":"The Altruists : A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA vibrant and perceptive novel about a father's plot to win back his children's inheritance.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eArthur 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 amp;mdash; the small fortune his late wife, Francine, kept secret, which she bequeathed directly to his children.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThose 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 amp;mdash; memories that orbit Francine, the matriarch whose life may hold the key to keeping them together.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSpanning New York, Paris, Boston, St. Louis, and a small desert outpost in Zimbabwe, \u003ci\u003eThe Altruists\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47179758108912,"sku":"2940171793180","price":22.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940171793180_p0.jpg?v=1763745117","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940171793180","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}