Book Review: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Release Date: January 9, 2018
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?
It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children–four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness–sneak out to hear their fortunes.
The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in ’80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel struggles to maintain security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.
Both a dazzling family love story and a sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.
The four Gold siblings range in age from seven to thirteen years old when they pay a visit to the woman on Hester Street, a mysterious woman who is rumored to be able to give a person his or her exact date of death. Some of the siblings are given an early death date, while others are told they will have a long life. Each of them internalizes this information differently.
The Immortalists was one of my book club’s selections and turned out to be a great choice. There is a discussion guide at the back of the paperback edition. We had a deep conversation about whether or not knowing the supposed date of our deaths would cause us to live our lives any differently. And would it make a difference how far into the future the date was? We also talked about how each character lived their lives in response to knowing the date they were predicted to die.
I love epic books that follow families for decades. The Immortalists is one of those books. I loved getting to know each Gold sibling in depth even though I didn’t always actually love them. It’s hard to say much more without spoiling it. The Immortalists is a sweeping novel that will stay with you for a time after you read it. Recommended.
