Has anyone on the WashU board read a recently published novel, The Altruists, by Andrew Ridker? I’d be interested to know what people who are connected to the university think.
Ridker is a pretty young (~28) WashU grad. A great deal of the book takes place in and around WashU, very, very thinly disguised as “Danforth University.” Of the four central characters, one is a semi-permanent visiting professor there, two are young alumni, and all of them live or grew up walking distance from the campus.
The book itself is a gently satirical, pretty enjoyable story of a dysfunctional family finding its way back to function again after the death of the family member who held everything together, with lots of flashbacks into how everyone got to be who they are. It’s a lot like a Jonathan Franzen novel, except shorter and more straightforward. It’s very well written, sometimes funny, sometimes moving, and sometimes offputting because the characters are such jerks to one another. Some serious thought happens along the way, with a very light touch. About what constitutes a good life, and the different sorts of love that situate people in the world – self-love, sexual attraction, romantic love, family love, love for what used to be called one’s “fellow man.”
The University itself might just as well be a character, and the book treats it much the way it treats its main characters. The portrait is ultimately loving, but there is definitely some shade thrown along the way.
WashU doesn’t make it into so much pop culture, so it’s nice that it gets a taste of that here. (It’s worth noting, however, that the novel is published by Viking, a purveyor of Serious Literature. I don’t think they would call this pop culture. It’s a huge feather in Ridker’s cap – and in WashU’s – that his first novel is getting a name-brand Serious Literature publication.)