The Altruists - Family Saga and Meaning of to-be-a-Good Person

The Altruists, a novel

I picked this book because I like the cover with clean white, the picture, and reviews stated, “Super brilliant, Super funny”.

The first chapter I did not see any funny but sad, because this chapter was about their burning house, meanwhile whole family plus a couple client were in the house.

The end of the first chapter, the author put some conversations among them, when they were seeing the fire fighters doing their job from the outside of burning house.

Seemed the author left the clues for readers by putting two words in bold fonts. I kept in my mind those words.

The next chapters jumped back and forward, reminding me to words with bold fonts. They are the “theme” of this novel.

This book is about the a family, Alters. Arthur Alters is a father, “professor at a Midwestern college, he can’t afford his mortgage, he’s exasperated his much-younger girlfriend”.

Andrew Ridker, The author of The Altruists.

Maggie is a main character, a daughter, who “a would-be do-gooder trying to fashion herself a noble life of self-imposed poverty”. Ethan is his son, an introvert gay.

I read all through the book. I still did not see any funny and smart. I just felt piety to those characters, seems they are not mature, not smart and wise about life. “Am I loosing the sense of humor?”

I was thinking that I was stressful, my anxiety level was getting higher. I was about frustrated because I also had to google some terms from this novel that I was doubt about the definitions and the concepts.

This book was wrote by a millennial author, a young man in her twenties. It is his first novel.

Since I reviewed another book which is Altruism: The Power of Compassion. Finally, I agree that The Altruists is super funny and super brilliant.

This novel is ironic and tragicomic about moral life, and the concepts how to be a good person with the naive thought.

The author fascinated about two differences. We can see how two generations encounter in this novel, between baby boomers and millennials, also between dysfunctional family and campus life. Ridker gives the readers good measurements of compassion.

The author is very smart, even the characters seem kind of un-mature persons, but he created their personalities exactly like in the theories or concepts that we learn either in the Sociology Class or in the Psychology of Personality Class.

The terms in the book are also terms in the textbooks, and some concepts might from his faith.