The Latecomer

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

martyred ancestor Joseph Oppenheimer (Goebbels’s own Jud Süss!)

Jud Süss—“court Jew”

anti-Semite Henry Ford. Later, the instability of those 1970s Jeeps would become something of a cliché,

We rolled a Jeep

generally resentful about the extra burden she would now have to shoulder, and had a particular resentment for the kind of sacred mother-daughter sharing that was a standard scene of Young Adult fiction:

another drone of pain was even now surging through her lower abdomen. That pain was a sharp reminder of how deeply unfair this all was.

was Stella Western, and his father was our father, Salo Oppenheimer.

and never be on their own, as if being forced to share a house and a family and a womb were not some contrived human torture on an existential level.

active proponent of a faith so … well, so cultish and strange.

caesura in the conversation,

anti-intellectual drivel

statewide NSDA tournament,

animated but nonpersonal discussion.

both polite people who spoke kindly to each other as a rule, especially in the morning

Jesus, who suffered on the cross to wash away our sins. In His name we thank you. Amen.”

Ugh

because he didn’t care about his sister. Not now. Maybe not ever, after this. It was all too shocking to get his head around.

only lied about one thing outright: when Rochelle asked if he had any siblings he said, ferociously and without hesitation, no.

terroir

irremediable

autodidacticism is a gift, from ourselves, to ourselves,

Sacred Grove.” Lewyn looked around himself. Something about not seeing the forest for the trees occurred to him, but that wasn’t quite right.

if only it weren’t for himself and his unfathomable wish to go further in.

Lost ...cult

The faintest hint of affection, the palest expression of warmth, was enough to make each Oppenheimer triplet recoil; this Lewyn understood, with deep sadness, for the very first time in his life, as the waves of applause and the shining faces and the powerful evidence of roiling human love surged all around him. Was it God, after all? Not one of his own relatives believed

“Do you not have a pathetic need to feel special, Harrison?”

risible

New definition of riz

one way or another, sooner or later, though not without harm. No one ever got through without harm, and no one knew that better than himself.

either a farce or a revenge tragedy.

They have to take care of their parents alone, and deal with horrible situations alone. And you’ve always been so close!”

Mom doesn't know ?

as a lesbian ought to have begun years earlier, but it hadn’t. It was beginning now, and in full familial glare, and with this terrible feeling of longing upon her like a net.

Lewyn, what is there to talk about? You have a lot of shit to work out, obviously. And it’s not that I don’t sympathize, because I do. I think you’re a sweet, wonderful person, but there’s a seriously big hole in you, and if you don’t figure out what that is you’re just going to start stuffing it with, I don’t know, a crazy

“He came out of a petri dish!” she howled. “So did I. So did that.” She flung out her hand toward Phoebe, propelling a handful of sand that fortunately did not reach either parent or child. “I don’t think that constitutes a bond. I never

father was dust over lower Manhattan.

9/11

Privilege and tragedy. A perfect storm for any adolescent.

noxious mission to make the world awful.

“Blastocyst.

Existentially defrauded.

I have considered myself to be far more burdened by the perception of unearned advantages given to me because of my ethnicity than by my ethnicity itself.

But the peace of it. I just wanted it all the time.”

only one of the four was actually a member of the church. The other three were professional

“So these are people voluntarily declining ethnic privilege?”

Eli?

The professional, accomplished, and clearly brilliant woman beside me was quietly losing her shit.

affirmative action, which as you know he strongly opposes. I remember looking at him and thinking, ‘That man is not Black.’ It was visceral, and it never left me,

deflecting interest in his racial identity was a strategic decision to emphasize his ethnicity even as it made the point, publicly, that ethnicity

making assumptions about his race and his accomplishments. He built a post-racial platform on a racist lie.

Johanna wanted today was what she had always wanted, and that was the company and love of her children,

lacunae

That it was wearable might say a great deal about the enduring genius of Tupperware,

Lots Of humor