Content Warning: The Chapter Summaries & Analyses mention incest, a death by suicide, a suicide attempt, and child death that are referenced or described in Later.

The narrator—adult Jamie Conklin—opens the novel by apologizing for the frequent use of the word “later,” but he can’t help it because he’s telling a story which began when he was young. For the adult Jamie, his story is from the perspective of later.

The novel cuts to the past, as adult Jamie Conklin recalls his first-grader self going home from school, holding his mother’s hand and carrying a drawing of a turkey—the kind drawn by tracing one’s open hand.

Jamie’s mother, Tia Conklin, is carrying a heavy manuscript written by Regis Thomas. She is a literary agent, and Thomas is the author whose best-selling Roanoke series is her bread and butter. Tia takes the world very seriously, and Jamie later learns that this is partly because she suspects he might be a “crazy kid”. This particular day is the day she decides he isn’t “crazy” after all.

The elevator in their building is out of order, so Jamie offers to carry the manuscript for his mother Tia—but she reminds him that everyone has to carry their own burdens in life.