The Latecomer

“The Latecomer is consistently surprising. Its protagonists reinvent themselves with astonishing ingenuity. Fair warning to readers seeking “likable characters”: The people here are fierce, and they fight dirty. The Oppenheimers dare you to love them — and even when you don’t, you cannot look away… Korelitz combines moral inquiry with social satire. Like Wharton, she invites the reader to reflect, even as she paints a picture of privilege. A sumptuously wrapped gift, “The Latecomer” is a Gilded Age novel for the 21st century.”

Korelitz deftly limns this tension-riddled setup and the resulting Oppenheimer family dysfunction . . . The resolution, complete with a wedding, persuasively and touchingly affirms that even the most damaged people can grow and change.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Plot (whose 2014 novel, You Should Have Known, was turned into the HBO series The Undoing) returns with a novel about a rich New York City family whose lives are upended when the parents decide to have a fourth child—when their triplets are 18. If you thrive on tales of dysfunction and privilege told with humor and tenderness—and let’s face it, who doesn’t?—it’ll be tough to wait until May, the publication month for this eagerly awaited novel

Jean Hanff Korelitz is an ambidextrous writer: not only can she write a tight and absorbing literary thriller like The Plot, but with The Latecomer she draws us in again, this time with her ease, grace and wit, in a satisfying novel that spans generations, lives, and fates.

It's a slow burn, but this complex and layered story of the Oppenheimer family is worth hanging on through every torturous turn.

It is about luxury, misery, art and the pursuit of pleasure. Imagine being on the Orient Express as it slowly morphs into a rollercoaster. The result is a hell of a ride.