Arthur Alter is in trouble. A middling professor at a Midwestern college, he cant afford his mortgage, hes exasperated his new girlfriend, and his kids wont speak to him. And then theres the money – the small fortune his late wife Francine kept secret, which she bequeathed directly to his children.Those children are Ethan, an anxious recluse living off his mothers 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 Pandoras Box of age-old resentments and long-buried memories.