The Latecomer: A Novel

Triplets Lewyn, Sally, and Harrison are the much-wanted product of their mother's IVF. Johanna, their mother, dotes on them, but is oblivious to them as actual people. She insists that they love each other, and doesn't seem to notice that they prefer not to be in each other's company. Salo, their father, is largely uninterested (although not unloving), preferring to spend his time with his art collection, and, eventually, his mistress, until he is killed on 9/11. As the triplets are about to move out, Johanna decides that she wants one last chance at motherhood, and has the fourth embryo of the bunch implanted. Enter Pheobe, who, at 17, is the only member of the family able to see things (more or less) clearly.

After much excellent exposition setting up the family dynamic, the crux of the matter becomes apparent. The details would spoil the experience, but suffice it to say that Pheobe must overcome her siblings' old resentments and her mother's hang-ups, all formed long before she was born. Naturally, she'll uncover old secrets and learn a few things about herself along the way. But Phoebe is quite determined and not about to let her family members hide behind their usual evasive tricks.

Phoebe's narrative voice makes this book worth reading, even if, for most of the book. A strong and surprising young woman, you may find yourself wishing that she would bring her considerable talents and persistence to solve the problems in your life.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

Loved it. Jean Korelitz is great storyteller

Picked by Michelle 10/2022

I “read like my father used to smoke, just end to end.” Inside bookstores and libraries, I metamorphose into the Chicago “literati, actual and wannabe, davened among the volumes” and promise I’ll just browse. But “This was the flaw in making a bargain with yourself. There is no one else there to agree to the terms.” And that is when I stumbled upon Jean Hanff Korelitz’ The Latecomer, curled up on a chair, “this object so unadorned and yet so clearly contained by its…basic and primitive purpose of enabling a human body to relieve itself of its own weight,” and did not emerge for 48 hours. “Because what could be more transgressive, more thrilling, than taking somebody else’s secret and making it your own?” Jean Hanff Korelitz’ The Latecomer is about a set of IVF triplets navigating “the entire baffling mosh pit of adult life.” They “had a quiver full of Fuck You’s and enough spleen to send each and every one of them on its merry way.” It’s about a father who “wasn’t programmed for happiness” and his wife who “so loved being a mother, the Maypole around which her little ones danced, perpetually competing for her attention…and the frantic appeasement of her meandering partner, the children peeling off to begin their separate widening gyres, and then their outright, heartbreaking departures.” It’s about the latecomer thawed and born 17 years later with the hopes that “This baby could be like a phoenix, rising out of the wreckage of our very fucked-up family.” “Some houses get toxic. They’re full of plastic and waste. They’re a pollution in itself. Getting them clean, recycling what can be recycled, making a space habitable for human beings, all good for the planet as far as I’m concerned.” Sometimes the families inside needed a bit of liberation, too. “There’s been a lot of Come-to-Jesus in my family.” The Latecomer is a spiritual braid–atheism, Judaisim, Mormonism–and an interrogation of identity built on constructs. Although my least favorite triplet, Harrison resonated with me: “Deep inside him, so deep even he would not have known how to excavate it, was the rank, gangrenous fear that he was not entirely the intellectual being he had long ventriloquized.” I was inspired to instead reimagine education through the lens of Sally’s project: “that little glimpse of a way to be alive in the world that made sense to her…Maybe we don’t all get an opportunity to make the world better, but can we at least not fuck it up more?” “A lot of intractable issues suddenly become very pliable when people start telling other people they love them.” “A book in the back of a drawer is a book in the back of the drawer until somebody wants to buy it.” Jean Hanff Korelitz’ The Latecomer is the treasure your bookshelf has been waiting for.

This serious was almost a disappointment to me when I found out it wasn’t spooky but it has a great story line. The stories jump around but it does it well so I never felt lost.