The Oppenheimer triplets we’re born during the early days of IVF. The story is being told by Phoebe, the last egg that had been frozen and implanted about 17 years later. The book does not get interesting until approximately page 290. The story of their lives picks up at the point, but it slows down again till very close to the ending.
This could have been a great book, if the author was more concise in the telling. I also felt as if she was talking “down” to the reader in some parts. I felt the story just rambles on, especially in the telling of Harrison’s story.

The Latecomer, Jean Hanff Korelitz, author; Julia Whelan, narrator
Joanna Oppenheimer is a totally devoted wife determined to bring comfort to her husband. She also wants to be a mother and will devote herself to that effort, too. Salo Oppenheimer runs his family’s very successful business. He collects art to salve his conscience and ease the emotional pain he feels as a result of a terrible accident. His best friend and girlfriend were killed in the car he was driving.
When Joanna and Salo decide to try and start a family, disappointment follows. Disillusioned, they turn to science for help. Using in vitro fertilization, after many failures, they hit pay dirt. Since there were four viable embryos, three were chosen. Nine months later, they became Harrison, Lewyn, and Sally Oppenheimer. A fourth, healthy “future child” was frozen in a Petrie dish, just in case another one was desired. When that occasion came to pass, Phoebe was born, almost two decades later.
For some reason, the triplets were never very close and were always very different. Once able to make their own way, they actively avoided and/or tormented each other. When they went off to college, they cut the cord between their home and themselves, their parents and their siblings, and they only really returned home for a reunion on their mutual birthday. Each had a unique personality all his/her own. Harrison was somewhat of an arrogant genius who turned to the far right, politically. Lewyn was in the shadow of his siblings, insecure with a bit of an inferiority complex. Sally, as the only girl, wanted her freedom and to march to the beat of her own drummer, in a variety of ways. They all went to schools for the elite.
On the occasion of the 19th birthday of these triplets, their mother planned a clam bake at their home on Martha’s Vineyard. There were cracks forming in the family structure, and that night would signal dramatic changes in all of their lives. Couples would become estranged, a plane would crash, a lesbian would be revealed as secrets were told and hearts were broken. Each of the characters had their own secret plans to move on, without regard for the consequences, but first, they would leave disaster in their wake, some extracting revenge to achieve their own personal idea of happiness without any real regard for anyone else.
This fractured family would be further torn asunder when making matters even more complicated and more confusing for them all, another family, would enter, stage right. Stella and Ephraim Western, a family of color, are suddenly, deeply and irrevocably connected to their own. All by itself, these proffered themes would make for a very interesting novel as the character’s hidden pasts, secrets and lies are revealed. As double lives abound, religious confusion cohabits with art history, sexual identity is awakened in unexpected ways, and these myriad ideas capture the reader’s attention and imagination, the author decides to add a new element into this mix of ideas. Lately, it is a common tool used by many progressive authors.
Korelitz, a very accomplished writer, veers off the novel’s path and begins to include her own personal, political grievances into the narrative. Religion is mocked, capitalism is belittled, homophobia is raised, racism is introduced and xenophobia rears its head. Using this realm, she trashes those who side with Republicans, President Trump (even without naming him, it is obvious as the menu at a White House dinner is trashed and meant to demean the man who chose it), and FOX NEWs (using the expression the “FOX NEWS sneer, among other insulting references), equating those who disagree with these views with White Supremacists, liars and other misguided people like those who are pro-life and for a secure American border, for example. The opposition is the personification of ignorance and evil and those that promote the ideas of the left are smarter and kinder. The idea presented front and center is that those on the right, especially, have allowed their white privilege to govern their behavior and lifestyle, a lifestyle that both sides admit they do not want to give up. Can the sins of privilege and their past be rectified, remedied, erased?
Although this was a very interesting read, great for discussion, as a reader, I do not want to see my views made shameful, nor do I want to shame others. I simply want to read a book that engages my attention and makes me think, not a book that is biased in one direction or another. When an author makes sure to include every progressive, left-wing talking point, it begins to feel intrusive and distracts me from the character and plot development. The point they seem to want driven home is that if you don’t agree with their political propositions, you are, like some of the characters in this book, a misfit or worse, a cruel, arrogant, and ignorant, miscreant. The author has written a novel that takes place in the present day, and like those who support the cancel culture that abounds, she has created imaginary scenes that trash those with opposing views. In addition, I found the way race was presented to be a bit contrived. Thus, I was conflicted when it came to rating this book. The author is so skilled a writer, but this felt more like a political treatise loosely disguised as a novel, and I felt it contained many inappropriate comments and judgments.