BookLife Review: The Latecomer, by Jean Hanff Korelitz

siblings, Brooklyn, family home, divorce, family secrets, Brooklyn, Red Hook, outsider art, modern art, Cornell University, Mormonism, Judaism,

Author Jean Hanff Korelitz (author of The Plot) dives into the deep end of dark and twisty sibling and parent-child disconnection for about three-quarters of this book. And she holds the reader there and compels the reader to wallow around in the dysfunction and pain. Almost the inverse of her book, The Plot, The Latecomer is a relentless examination of the interior injury (or perceived injury) and pain occasioned by parental inattention, or perhaps the rippling impact of an emotionally unavailable parent (or two). The book only takes a turn toward resolution and the light (through the titular latecomer sibling) at the tail end of the book. Sitting in that lonely, painful and miserable disconnection is brutal. However, the turn toward connection ultimately uplifts and might just be an almost sufficient reward for the reader’s persistence.

The Latecomer is a worthwhile read if you can stand (or identify with) a hefty serving of dysfunctional family. Rich and deep, scathing and wounded, loneliness and missed connections haunt the story, which is oddly satisfying.