The Immortalists

Chloe Benjamin

Jan 2018 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Washington Post • NPR • Entertainment Weekly • Real Simple • Marie Claire • New York Public Library • LibraryReads • The Skimm • Lit Hub • Lit Reactor 

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“A captivating family saga.”—The New York Times Book Review

“This literary family saga is perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and Donna Tartt.”—People Magazine (Book of the Week)

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 seeks 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.

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.

Ratings and reviews

This was quite an interesting story! It begins with the four Gold children in New York in the summer of 1969. The children hear of a traveling psychic who is said to be set up in their neighborhood, who can tell anyone the date when they will die. No surprise, the Golds seek out the psychic and learn the supposed dates of their deaths. After that intro, the book jumps forward several years and we learn about the lives and deaths of the Gold children over several decades. First we hear from wild child Simon, the youngest, who becomes a dancer in San Francisco. The next chunk of years are told by Clara, the dreamer who wants to be a magician. The third portion is told by Daniel, the second oldest, who became a military doctor. Lastly, is Varya, the eldest child, who becomes a scientist interested in finding the key to long life. It's very interesting to see how the psychic's prophecies affect the Gold's as they grow and mature. It was also intriguing to see the family dynamic not just with the Gold siblings, but with their mother as well. And it was quite affecting to see how the deaths of their siblings impacted the other Gold children. This really was a very interesting story. I think the synopsis is a little misleading. It makes it sound like the book is more about magical realism than it really is... There isn't much magic in the book at all (the psychic being able to tell the dates of death and possibly Clara having a little bit of real magic), but it's more about the characters journeys and relationships.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin is a fascinating study in the nature of young people faced with the truncation of their future. Most of us go through life thinking of our life as a limitless string of experiences, but for those of us who understand our mortality, it can look very different. For the young, to know their fate ahead of time is to have great power, however it can certainly be damning, as was the case here. Benjamin's writing style is gripping and beautiful, I am very much looking forward to her next work, whenever that might be. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wonders if their life is meaningless. I also love the cover art, it was what attracted me to the work in the first place.

There was so much hype surrounding this book in the months leading up to it's release, I was both excited and wary to begin reading. I was afraid that perhaps the actual product would not live up to the hype. I was wrong. This book was everything it was promised to be and more. The author combines so many different elements to create a dazzling story that is set across several decades and manages to delve deeply into more than one character. I was so quickly drawn into the story and immediately found myself becoming emotionally invested in some of the characters-- a sign of a truly good book. If you can, I encourage you to pick this book up and be prepared not to put it down until you've read the entire thing.

About the author

Chloe Benjamin is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Immortalists. Her first novel, The Anatomy of Dreams, received the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award and was long listed for the 2014 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. She is a graduate of Vassar College and the M.F.A. in fiction at the University of Wisconsin. She lives with her husband in Madison, WI.