The Latecomer

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Individually they were a credit to themselves, if not to her. But as a family, they were still a failure.

The holidays labored under Johanna’s frantic embroidery of family traditions.

“And then, I started to get this feeling around it, not just all the moving parts of putting on this big show, but the presence of history, and the story of Joseph Smith and the early church, unfolding on the exact spot where it happened—just the meaning of the place, and the undertaking. And there are so many families doing this together, and the feeling of community was really overwhelming.”