This big-hearted debut with literary weight and commercial levity follows the plans of a middling professor in financial dire straits to see some of the money his wife left directly to his children, reuniting with them under the guise of a reconciliation. Fans of Zadie Smith, Jeffrey Eugenides and Jonathan Franzen will find plenty to please them here But in doing so, he unwittingly unleashes a Pandora's Box of age-old resentments and long-buried memories. Spanning New York, Paris, Boston, St. Louis, and a small desert outpost in Zimbabwe, The Altruists is a razor-sharp, darkly funny family saga from a sparkling new talent.
