The Latecomer
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
'Sparkling... funny, it is also cutting, a nearly forensic study of family conflict... both compulsively readable and thought-provoking.'New York Times
The Oppenheimer triplets have been reared with every advantage: wealth, education, and the determined attention of at least one of their parents. But they have been desperate to escape each other ever since they were born.
Now, on the verge of their departure for college and so close to their long-coveted freedom, the triplets are forced to contend with an unexpected complication: a fourth Oppenheimer sibling has just been born. What has possessed their parents to make such an unfathomable decision? The triplets can't begin to imagine the the power this little latecomer is about to exert - nor just how destructive she'll be to their plans . . .
'Korelitz draws us in again, this time with her ease, grace and wit, in a satisfying novel that spans generations, lives, and fates.'Meg Wolitzer
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE UNDOING - NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES
What readers are saying:
'Powerful, beautifully written, and well plotted.'
'Think Succession meets The Goldfinch...such captivating characters and plot with an excellent ending.'
'You don't want to skim over a single word of the exquisitely woven story.'
'This book will definitely stay with me for a long time. I loved it.'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Korelitz (The Plot) returns with an irresistible dramedy of errors about a singularly unhappy family. There's no love lost among Salo and Johanna Oppenheimer's triplets as they head off to college in 2000. Harrison, "the smart one"; Lewyn, "the weird one"; and Sally, "the girl," each have their own separate ambitions. Then there's Phoebe, "the latecomer," born that June from the Oppenheimers' leftover frozen embryo. The strife in the couple's difficult marriage originates in the 1970s, when they were students at Cornell. Salo was driving a Jeep that rolled over, killing his girlfriend, Mandy Bernstein, and a fraternity brother. Salo and Johanna, a friend of Mandy's, bond in common grief, but quickly realize they have little else to connect them, and, indeed, as time goes on, Salo loves art more than he does his wife or their children. He becomes a collector of outsider art, stashing his spoils in a warehouse while his family enjoys a privileged life on the Brooklyn Heights waterfront. While Sally and Lewyn sort out their lives at Cornell, and Harrison at an ultraconservative two-year college, Salo makes regular trips to the West Coast to visit a documentary filmmaker he admires, whose life was also shaped by the fateful accident. A birthday clambake on Martha's Vineyard in early September 2001 sets the stage for a cataclysmic culmination that uncovers a series of festering, self-destructive lies. Korelitz builds several satisfying twists into the crisp and panoramic narrative, and a coda from high schooler Phoebe in 2017 offers an acute look at the family affairs. This is a sizzler.
Customer Reviews
Well written but…
The author is American. This is her eighth novel. She is best known for her 5th (?) You Should Have Known (2014), which was adapted for TV as The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant. TV adaptations of The Plot (2021) and this novel are in the works.
Family saga spanning 50 years centred on a well-off NY Jewish family, the Oppenheimers, and especially triplets Harrison, Lewyn, and Sally, who were products of the early days of IVF. We start by learning about the travails of their father Salo who, when still a teenager, crashed a car killing his girlfriend and bestie, but walked away virtually unscathed. He eventually marries an acolyte of his dead GF. They try and fail to have kids. Hence, the IVF. Unlike many fictional twins or triplets, the Oppenheimer’s three are never close, and keen to go their separate ways when it’s time to go to College. Mom Joanna then decides to have another kid because she’s lonely. The remainder of the book examines the effect of the titular late arrival on family dynamics that were not overly healthy to start with.
Slow paced character driven novel. All are well developed but Ms Korelitz does too much telling and not enough showing IMHO. 70% of the book is taken up by narratives from the POV of the triplets, none of whom is particularly likeable. Compared to them, late comer Phoebe is a breath of fresh air. I liked The Plot (2021) better, principally because it had one.