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 … 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.
more
Fiction should be entertaining. Think Shakespeare, who entertains at every level from high politics to low humor. This book has a pedestrian, almost brutalist style, boring characters, a boring background, no drama, and I think it is impossible to impart genuine wisdom using fiction. (Because… it is not reality.) If you want to learn from tedium, you can probably do so best from your own life, which hopefully has been unexciting.
Really appreciated the interwoven story and character development and how it came together in the end.
If you could know the date and time of your own death, would you want to? And would it change your future?
The four siblings in this book visit a fortune teller, which becomes the defining moment of their young lives.
Their lives take divergent paths, but they cannot escape their fates.
This is one story I won’t forget long after I’ve read it. i highly recommend.
Loved this book. Great characters and plot twists.
Interesting concept. Wonderful characters
It’s so unusual how 4 siblings life is changed and governed by one event..interesting characters.
Back in May 2019, I wrote a review that said, “Based on all of the promotion, I really wanted to like this book a lot more than I did.” On January 4, 2021, I’m editing this review to expand on my thoughts. What if someone told you that they could predict the day of your death? Would you want to know? Would knowing your death date change anything about the way you lived your life? Most of us would want to know. These are the questions that drive the book, “The Immortalists” by Chloe Benjamin. The story revolves around the four Gold siblings living in NYC in the late ’60’s. They hear a rumor about a psychic staying nearby and go to see what she can predict about their future. The reader is screaming at this point, “Please don’t do this. You are just children. You do not need to know!” I was so upset, but not completely surprised when the psychic agreed to tell them. I did not have a close relationship with siblings growing up, but it seemed a little unrealistic tome that they never sit around and talked about this to each other or to their parents. Would this kind of trauma make them closer or drive them apart? If they knew the death dates of their siblings would they try to intervene to stop the outcome? The rest of the story revolves around watching the lives of each sibling unfold. While I won’t spoil the endings, I will say that I would take caution in recommending this book. There could be many triggers. (less)
I loved reading this book. Excellent writing and a thought provoking topic.
After reading a bunch of reviews prior to starting this, I really didn’t expect to like this as much as I did. Granted, some sections were better than others (Simon and Klara), but overall, I really did enjoy this.
How would knowing the date of your own death affect your life? Would you live cautiously or recklessly? Would you embrace all that life has to offer, or would you hide away, trying to change the future?
This book explores four very different siblings from a New York Jewish family, starting in 1968. At the young ages of 13, 11, 9 and 7, the Gold children each learn the day they’re going to die. The book then breaks down into four sections, starting from youngest to oldest, and we see life from their point of view. How they each choose to live (and die), and how the knowledge of their death day affects each of them differently.
I was drawn to this book because I’ve ALWAYS wanted to know when I would die, so reading about people who’ve been given this information, and seeing what it does to the trajectory of their lives was interesting.
I do think Simon and Klara’s sections were the most interesting and real. Daniel’s seemed a little far-fetched to me. For someone who put so little stock in the information he had, you would think he would have just stayed home. I don’t see how he could POSSIBLY think doing what he did on his death-day would end well for him. It’s almost as though he was asking to die. And Varya’s section? Not gonna lie…I skimmed much of it. I am not into science-y mumbo-jumbo, so I just skimmed over anything pertaining to her job and read the parts about her personal life.
Overall, I do recommend this if you’re interested in it. It’s an interesting idea, and really gets you thinking about how your life would change if you knew when you were gonna die.
How would you lead your life if you knew the date you would die? Would you live with reckless abandon, savor every moment or fear the march of time? That’s the question examined in The Immortalists with the four Gold siblings. It was a really interesting read to see how each handled this knowledge, begging the question of whether knowing when they’d die led to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Incredible, page-turning family drama with great characters and tension ratcheting up to the breaking point. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
This was a thought provoking book that leaves you riveted from beginning to end. A fast and easy read that’s perfect to take along for a weekend getaway!
Four siblings visit a fortune teller when they are young … then follows their lives and how that fortune affected each of them.
I really enjoyed the premise of this book. A hard one to put down.
First off, I must say this book has the most beautiful cover! It is a work of art. Reviewer Elyse Walter’s opinion is that it symbolizes The Tree of Life and according to Jewish Kabbalists is a “diagrammatic representation of the process of which the Universe came into being.” Wow! I could have never known or guessed that. As I look at the cover now, I notice there are four main tree limbs branching out, which I assume symbolizes the four main characters. The limbs are growing, reaching out, going their separate ways.
This book tells the story of four young Jewish children living in New York City’s Lower East Side in 1969. They are the children of Saul Gold a tailor and his wife Gertie, a homemaker. Life is boring and on a summer day, the children, Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon ages thirteen to seven learn about a woman who tells fortunes and can predict when someone will die. On a lark, they visit her and one by one she gives them the date of their deaths. What they thought would be a bit of fun turns out to impact the way they will conduct the rest of their lives and how they interact with each other as well as the rest of the world.
At first when I heard the premise for this book, I thought I would have no problem knowing when I will die. I have always been a person who likes to know what is going to happen. It makes it easier to plan for things. After reading this story and the way this knowledge influenced each of these children, I must admit I may have changed my mind.
This book is very thought-provoking, at times extremely uncomfortable. It follows the siblings on four separate storylines as they go off on their own paths and each make uncomfortable choices with their lives that could possibly hasten their demise. The reader is left wondering if knowing when you will die influences someone to act a certain way. Does knowing your destiny trigger its reality? Or can free will create a new destiny?
It all begins with Klara and Simon leaving for San Francisco after their father’s sudden death in 1978. Simon at sixteen, runs away with Klara without telling his mother because he does not want the responsibility of taking over the family business. Simon, his mother’s favorite, the golden boy, has always been a bit restless, impetuous, and uncomfortable in his own skin. He goes a rather wild in San Francisco at a time when history is about to be made. Klara struggles to find her feet, but all she wants to do is perform her magic. She takes on numerous menial jobs to make a living all while waiting for her big break as a magician.
Daniel and Varya are both left picking up the pieces at home and trying to continue their scholarly paths. Their mother is heartbroken over Simon’s defection and Daniel is tasked with bringing him home. He is anxious to get back to medical school and is angry with Simon for putting him in this position. It’s felt all around that Simon as the youngest at sixteen should have stayed at home and taken care of their mother and the business. Simon is having too much fun and is adamant he will not return. The seer’s prediction catches up to him first and he has no regrets.
Daniel finally realizes his dream of becoming a doctor and ends up an army doctor after 9/11. Varya becomes a longevity researcher. She develops OCD as a mechanism to prevent the seer’s predictions from coming true. She said the “prophecy worked inside her like a virus” and it did the same to her siblings. Varya lives the longest, but her story is the saddest somehow. She works with apes in a lab and this was honestly heartbreaking and seemingly inhumane. The book did drag for me in a few places and once or twice I was not sure I wanted to continue, but I’m very happy I persevered. This last part of the story wrapped it all up in such a way it finally all made sense to me. It was a book worth reading, the subject worth considering. I give it 3 ½ stars rounded up to 4.
Compelling and haunting and tragic in good ways. It’s not a book to read when you want uplifting and light, but it is a book to read when you want deep and thought-provoking.
A simply amazing feat of literary gymnastics. Chloe Benjamin is a talent in league with the author geniuses of our time. I was fascinated with this tale, and can’t wait to see what she gives us next.
At first I wasn’t sure about this book because the premise didn’t thrill me. I read one paragraph and was hooked. What a great example of how a premise can be purely a device for character arcs. I can’t count the number of times I put this book down just to look away and say, “Wow.”
My favorite book of the year. The concept was original, but painful. I had to know if the predictions were true! I couldn’t put the book down, and I couldn’t put it down. Compelling story, great characters.