NOVEMBER 18 @ 1 PM EST

Author: Jean Korelitz – Virtual

The Latecomer: A Novel

FICTION

Jean Hanff Korelitz’s lat­est nov­el is about fam­i­ly: the oblig­a­tions one has — or doesn’t have — the secrets we keep, and the sto­ries we car­ry. The nov­el fol­lows the Oppen­heimers, a wealthy New York City – based fam­i­ly. The par­ents, Salo and Johan­na, meet in col­lege under dev­as­tat­ing cir­cum­stances and begin a life togeth­er that even­tu­al­ly includes IVF and triplets. Despite final­ly hav­ing the chil­dren she des­per­ate­ly want­ed, Johan­na real­izes that there are no strong famil­ial bonds; the sib­lings aren’t par­tic­u­lar­ly close, her mar­riage feels ten­u­ous, and it’s almost like they are five indi­vid­u­als sim­ply liv­ing under the same roof.

That all changes when Johan­na decides to add anoth­er child to the fam­i­ly, going back to a left­over embryo after the triplets have left for col­lege. When the three return home for the sum­mer after their fresh­man year, things come to a head one night, and what hap­pens next alters all of their lives for­ev­er. More than a decade lat­er, the fam­i­ly ​“late­com­er,” Phoebe, may be the key to rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and togeth­er­ness — as well as the guide to find­ing long-buried answers.

Jean Hanff Kore­litz is the New York Times best­selling author of the nov­els The Plot, You Should Have Known (which aired on HBO in Octo­ber 2020 as The Undo­ing, star­ring Nicole Kid­man, Hugh Grant, and Don­ald Suther­land), Admis­sion (adapt­ed as a film in 2013 star­ring Tina Fey), The Dev­il and Web­ster, The White Rose, The Sab­bath­day Riv­er and A Jury of Her Peers, as well as Inter­fer­ence Pow­der, a nov­el for chil­dren. Her com­pa­ny BOOK­THEWRITER hosts Pop-Up Book Groups in which small groups of read­ers dis­cuss new books with their authors. She lives in New York City with her hus­band, Irish poet Paul Muldoon.