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A review by sandracohen
The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz
4.0
So much about this book I liked so I’ll just get out the way the things that I didn’t. Each chapter, aside from having a title, has a sentence of introduction. In every chapter I felt like I was reading an elementary school novel that had to tease me to get me to read it. Also some of the chapters ended with teasers about what would happen in the future. These two literary styles just irritated me.
The story, however, was raw. About a family that had so many secrets that it basically imploded during one fateful 24-hour period. The story about triplets, born to a couple each hiding their own fears and foibles. A family that never really connected with five very different orbits in the same sphere, each honing their barbs bath for distance and for the kill.
I felt each of their stories. Each of the children but especially the mother, Johanna. Her fantasy of what she wanted her family to be was so big. Something I can understand. And something that while she held on was unobtainable.
Redemption for them all comes in the unlikeliest of people, the late in life sister born into a very different family than the triplets. And one who is freed from the expectations the first family had.
The author does an amazing job of skewering the liberal intellectual education system. While I think it served as a vehicle to ‘explain’ the characters, it did give ideas to think about. Maybe the pendulum has swung too far. I’m just hopeful it balances out.
I also wanted to comment on the house cleaning that Sally and Phoebe take upon themselves to do. I know the joy that this mitzvah can bring and the feeling of not only putting someone else in order but yourself as well.
The story, however, was raw. About a family that had so many secrets that it basically imploded during one fateful 24-hour period. The story about triplets, born to a couple each hiding their own fears and foibles. A family that never really connected with five very different orbits in the same sphere, each honing their barbs bath for distance and for the kill.
I felt each of their stories. Each of the children but especially the mother, Johanna. Her fantasy of what she wanted her family to be was so big. Something I can understand. And something that while she held on was unobtainable.
Redemption for them all comes in the unlikeliest of people, the late in life sister born into a very different family than the triplets. And one who is freed from the expectations the first family had.
The author does an amazing job of skewering the liberal intellectual education system. While I think it served as a vehicle to ‘explain’ the characters, it did give ideas to think about. Maybe the pendulum has swung too far. I’m just hopeful it balances out.
I also wanted to comment on the house cleaning that Sally and Phoebe take upon themselves to do. I know the joy that this mitzvah can bring and the feeling of not only putting someone else in order but yourself as well.