The Ultimate Gift

Content Warning: This book sometimes engages in ableist and stereotypical views of disability, particularly blindness. It sometimes trivializes these disabilities. The book contains depictions of foster homes and may engage in stereotypical ideas of adoptive families. It contains references to death by suicide.

In the novel’s view, there’s nothing wrong with money per se: Money helps people feed, clothe, shelter, and educate themselves, plus it affords people moments of happy entertainment. The problem, in the book’s view, is that too much money received as an inheritance can damage a person’s outlook and behavior. Tycoon Red Stevens saw this effect with his overly generous contributions to his relatives: They became selfish, greedy, and entitled, in his eyes. Red tries to make up for this by focusing on the one relative who still has potential: his great-nephew, Jason Stevens. At the reading of Red’s will, his relatives can barely contain their nervous excitement as they await a big chunk of the old tycoon’s fortune. Red obliges them, and they clap delightedly, proving that the only thing they wanted from Red was for him to die and leave them a fortune. The novel suggests that wanting money simply for money’s sake is wrong and that, when it comes to money, one should want it for what it can do to improve the world, what it can do to help others.