The Latecomer

As early as the Foreword, Jean Hanff Korelitz brings up the theme of Making a Family. The Oppenheimer family members are as distant as they can be while still living in the same house. The basic tension of this theme is also introduced with the acknowledgement of Johanna’s continual attempts to force them together. The Foreword also gives the reader a quick glimpse of a future time, when the triplets are 18 years old and leaving home, creating tension with a leading statement about the family taking “a turn for the strange and quite possibly unprecedented” (1). Although the Foreword is only a brief passage, Hanff Korelitz piques the reader’s attention with this vague, leading statement.

The first sentence of Chapter 1, which refers to Johanna as “Mom,” establishes the narrator as one of Johanna’s children, yet to be identified. It also makes clear that the story will be told from a first-person point-of-view. Despite this point-of-view, the narrator is given a degree of omniscience which, the reader will understand later, is due to extensive and intense conversations with the other family members. This omniscience allows her to explore events that happened long before her birth with a certain amount of authority.

This level of omniscience is needed, as in Chapter 1 the narrative returns to the origins of the family, with Salo and Johanna’s meeting at Mandy’s funeral. The fact that Johanna hides the truth about how she and Salo met puts a few important ideas about the family into play. First, the fact that Johanna deems it necessary to shape the family’s story foreshadows the approach that she will take throughout their lives, shaping the truth about their relationships to fit what she wants to believe. It also underscores her need to protect Salo, who is likewise invested in not speaking of Mandy’s death. These impulses of Johanna’s establish a Legacy of Secrets as the norm for the Oppenheimers, and their children will later follow in their footsteps. The tragic story of Salo and Johanna’s meeting also sets the tone for the novel—the tragedy of the accident which led to their marriage foreshadows the tragedy of the story that will unfold.

Chapter 1 also establishes Salo’s relationship to his Jewish identity. He has no problem buying a Mercedes, a company historically linked to Nazi Germany, until his grandmother objects. However, characteristic of Salo, as we are to learn, he changes his mind and purchases a Jeep instead. The Jeep, which everyone blames for the accident, also establishes Salo as a typical young American. He has changed his mind to respect his grandmother, but in doing so, has chosen a car that further emphasizes the generational and cultural gap between them. In addition, he still regrets the loss of the Mercedes, ruminating that “he’d really, really liked that Benz a lot, its sleek shape and leather seats, the vaguely European sophistication he’d felt sitting behind the wheel” (6). With this small incident, Hanff Korelitz shows how Salo seems to feel little connection to his Jewish heritage. It’s unclear whether Salo would have been able to avoid the canonical family event of the accident had he been driving a desired-but-culturally-anathema Mercedes rather than the Jeep, a car with an American military heritage. Symbolically, Hanff Korelitz uses the cars to show that accepting the tragedy of one’s background and origins is the key to healing from them.

Chapter 2 delves a further into Salo’s character as well. Like Johanna, he keeps secrets, and it is typical of him to let everyone believe he and Mandy were engaged to make them happy. He rationalizes this behavior in drawing a distinction between dissembling and lying: “Anyway, dissembling wasn’t the same as lying, especially when its purpose was to spare the feelings of the bereaved” (16). This characteristic will play out with Johanna as well, as he goes along with all of her plans to achieve a family—he does not actively support her efforts, but he does not disagree either. In fact, he further rationalizes that, since he believes himself to lack the capacity for love after Mandy’s death, there is nothing wrong with accepting Johanna’s love without reciprocation.

Chapter 2 also offers another illustration of Salo’s disconnection from his Jewish identity when he does not see the significance of his entering Germany until “at the border the guard looked sharply at him and held that look, and abruptly the hairs on Salo’s arms stood up” (17). Here, he reconnects unexpectedly with his Jewish heritage, showing the reader both how disconnected he is from the Jewish faith, but also how it still shapes his identity and experience.

One of the most impactful moments of Chapter 2 is when Salo first discovers his passion for art. He is so disconnected from the art scene that he does not know who Warhol is, although most readers will recognize the artist from his companion’s description of “the man whose work she wanted to see, who had once painted soup cans and bananas” (17). Until this moment in the museum, his art experience is limited to the art that his family owns, “the low-country landscapes and portraits of jolly women and smug, prosperous men” (17). Hanff Korelitz juxtaposes the more traditional Old Masters art that Salo’s family collects with the modern art of Warhol. Although art is a part of Salo’s life, it has always been in the background, seen as a smart investment, or a means of leverage, as with their donation of art to Cornell to secure Salo’s admission. This experience contrasts sharply with his discovery of the Twombly painting at the museum. Although Salo does not believe himself capable of love, the novel argues that, in that moment, with the “dizziness, confusion, even fainting” (19) of Stendahl syndrome, he has viscerally and emotionally experienced passion for the first time.

When Johanna and Salo meet again at the wedding, they both show elements of their characters that will continue to drive their decisions and relationships. Salo does not love Johanna but allows her to love him and to determine the pace and direction of their relationship. On her end, Johanna characteristically sees what she want to see about their relationship, and makes it what she wants it to be, because Salo allows it. This dynamic continues in Chapter 3, as Johanna first keeps her attempts at getting pregnant from Salo, and then, when she confesses and sets out her plan, Salo goes along with it unquestioningly, but with no true enthusiasm.

By Chapter 4, Salo and Johanna have established their home in Brooklyn Heights and are awaiting the arrival of the triplets. When Salo acquires his warehouse and houses in Red Hook, although the real estate agent is dismissive, a reader familiar with New York will understand that someday the property will be very valuable. Hanff Korelitz adopts this same strategy with Salo’s art purchases—readers familiar with the art world will recognize the paintings and names that are mentioned and know that, although his collection comes from a place of visceral reaction to the work, he is accumulating a collection that will someday be worth millions.

Although Salo ostensibly moves the art into the warehouse because of its increased worth, he is essentially removing himself and his emotions from their home. Art is Salo’s passion, the core of his true self, and he removes it and hides it away in a remote location that no one in the family is ever invited to. He gives over all decisions about the family and the house to Johanna, relinquishing his role. Johanna will continue to perpetrate the idea of a close-knit family by filling the house, over the years, with photos of the triplets together. Her refusal to understand the true nature of her family’s relationships is underscored by the narrator, who describes the progression of photos: “[T]hree fussy babies, three impatient toddlers, three sullen children, three teenagers who would disperse the instant they heard the shutter click” (53).