The Greatest Possible Good

A father sets out to give away his family’s fortune after a life-altering change of perspective in the middling latest from Brooks (The Impossible Boy). The story’s events are triggered by a freak accident, when Arthur Candlewick falls into a mine shaft. Having counted his lucky stars for surviving, he decides to devote himself to altruism. Without consulting his wife, Yara, a software developer in early retirement who worries about their financial future, Arthur donates millions of pounds from the sale of his lumber company to charity and embarks on giving away everything else. Yara, unsettled but unable to prove he’s not in his right mind, divorces him. Arthur relentlessly pursues his goal while Yara starts dating a much younger fitness influencer. Meanwhile, their daughter, Evangeline, gets accepted to Cambridge University but doesn’t notice all the red flags about her condescending old-moneyed boyfriend, while her younger brother, Emil, drifts into drug use. The author’s fluid prose goes down easy (Yara chooses a bottle of wine because its name is “dimly familiar, as though she’d encountered it once before in a dream”), but the novel fails to generate a meaningful critique of wealth and its corrosive effect on the characters. Brooks reaches for satire but remains mired in the excess of privilege. (July)