The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR- Washington Post NPR Entertainment Weekly Real Simple Marie Claire New York Public Library Library Reads 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.
- Suggested age range- Adult
- Format- Paperback
- Product dimensions- 5.4" W x 7.7" H x 1.1" D
- Genre- Fiction
- Publisher- Penguin Publishing Group, Publication date- 02-05-2019
- Page count- 368
- ISBN- 9780735215092
Web ID: 8511222
Interesting and Unusual!
During the late 1960s, the Gold siblings, Varya, Daniel, Klara and Simon heard about a fortune teller, a woman who could tell them at what age they would die. When they go to visit her, they cannot ‘unknow’ what they have learned. This knowledge influences the way they live their lives and molds their personalities. There are four sections to this book. Each section is narrated by one of the children and in it we learn about each child as they grow up and become adults. We also learn about how the knowledge that each child gained from the fortune teller affects his/her life. This is a story about family and how they react to life’s struggles. It is also about the power that our beliefs have over our lives. This is an interesting and unusual story that should not be missed.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Themes and quotes
This is a novel that explores the themes of family, love, mortality, and the impact of knowledge on our lives. The story follows the lives of four siblings who, as children, visit a fortune-teller who tells them the date of their deaths. The novel explores how this knowledge shapes their lives and relationships, as well as the impact it has on their understanding of death and the meaning of life. Some notable quotes from the book include: "Knowing the date of your death doesn't change how you live. It just changes how you remember living." "Death is the one thing that makes life worth living." "You can't live for the future. You can't even live for the present. You have to live for the past." "The future is a mystery, and the present is a gift. That's why they call it the present." "The past is gone, and the future is unknown. The only thing we have is the present." "Death is not an ending, but a beginning." "Life is a fleeting moment, and death is the final act." "The future is always uncertain, but the past is always certain." "Knowledge is power, but it can also be a curse." "We are all mortal, but our mortality is what makes us human."
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
downer
New York City, 1969: The Gold siblings are looking at another monotonous summer together on New York City's Lower East Side. But even as they anticipate the days blend together, they know that things are about to change. This is the last summer they'll all be together like this before summer jobs and school and so many other things get in the way. It seems like the perfect time to do something drastic like visit the mystical psychic Daniel has heard about in whispers all around the neighborhood, leading them to the cluttered apartment on Hester Street. They say the woman can tell you exactly when you'll die. But none of them understand what that means when they still have so much life left. At least, they think they do. As time passes, they'll all be shaped by that hot summer day and the dates the fortuneteller told them. Simon--the youngest, the golden boy--will never stop running; throwing himself into anything and everything as he tries to find love and, if he's lucky, his truest self as he runs away to San Francisco in the 1980s. In the 1990s Klara lands in Las Vegas. After years of trying to make a go of her show as an illusionist, her act might finally be taking off. But after years performing as a mentalist, Klara is no longer sure where reality ends and the magic begins--a blurred line that could lead to her greatest performance ever. Or have disastrous consequences. Daniel, the eldest, has spent his life as a doctor. It isn't always glamorous but he's happy, isn't he? When one unexpected Thanksgiving shows Daniel everything he could have had--and everything he never will--he becomes obsessed with understanding the truth of the mystical woman all those years ago. Varya never had much use for people--or for the prediction she received on Hester Street--but as she finds herself more and more entrenched in her work on longevity research, even practical Varya begins to wonder if things would have--could have--been different if they'd all made different choices on that long ago summer day in The Immortalists (2018) by Chloe Benjamin. The Gold family is white and Jewish with varying levels of faith with more diversity among the secondary cast. The story is broken into four parts--one following each sibling--over the course of twenty some odd years. Benjamin's sweeping generational family saga tackles big questions of fate vs agency without offering many answers one way or another. Crossing the country and spanning decades, The Immortalists captures the zeitgeist of the times starting with the frenzied energy of San Francisco in the 1980s and the ensuing panic and grief of the growing AIDS crisis. Simon's section starts when Simon is only sixteen leading to a lot of instances of reading about Simon's underage sexual encounters with much older men. While not unrealistic for the time it still felt uncomfortable to read about in relation to a character who is still essentially a child. The omniscient third person narrator also clings closely to the female gaze--particularly with Simon but also even in the opening page with Varya--focusing needlessly on objectification particularly with instances when Simon wants the "challenge" of another "hard" body like his own. There could be arguments that this adds nuance to literary fiction but, for me, it only served to constantly draw me out of the story. Ultimately The Immortalists raises some interesting questions by putting a family through an increasingly unpleasant series of events across a generation. Readers interested in philosophical questions about life choices will find a lot to appreciate here while readers hoping to lean more into the fantastical elements will be better served elsewhere. Possible Pairings: In Some Other World, Maybe by Shari Goldhagen, The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo, An Extraordinary Destiny by S. N. Paleja, One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Confusing
The book was nothing like I'd expected. Very long and boring.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Excellent Reading
Bought just because and glad I did - I wanted to read it slowly in order to savor the stories and the language. Thank you for writing this book. I recommend it to everyone 19 and over - younger readers may not appreciate the depth.
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Misleading Blurb
I liked this book, don't get me wrong. But I feel like I was misled in terms of what I was getting myself into. Based on the back of the book, I thought it was going to be more of a page-turner, borderline thriller. That was what I was looking for. Instead I got a sad, devastating book about 4 siblings whose lives turn out in heartbreaking ways. They are reckless, selfish, likely mentally ill, and their lives end in horrible tragedies and wretched disappointment. There was also a lot of really graphic and disturbing parts of the book that I was not expecting whatsoever and also seemed like they were pretty unnecessary. There were graphic scenes and gruesome animal torture that just did not need to be included and that also took away from the story. Overall, this book was heartbreaking, and I was not properly made aware of that by the marketing or by the book's back. The prose was beautiful and I do not want to take away from that. Chloe Benjamin is a gifted writer. But her work is better suited for an audience that I do not fall in, and therefore this should not have been marketed to readers like me.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Loved it!
I purchased this book at random shortly after it came out and started creating buzz. I’m so glad that I did! It is a very inspiring story that basically anyone on earth could identify with one way or another. Sometimes books come along your path at a certain time in your life for a message you need to read or hear. They come as signs that fate and the universe are working WITH you. This book did that for me. This book includes SUCH rich character details and really adds to the depth of the story. The author did such a fabulous job (so much so that halfway through reading the book, I googled the author to find more books written by them!!!) The Immoralists tackles issues such as the fine line between destiny and freedom of choice, reality and illusions, this world or the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the long familiarity of the family bonds that we all have experienced, good or bad.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Compelling Page-Turner
The beautiful cover first caught my eye, but once I read the back cover I knew this would be unlike anything else I've ever read. The beginning starts off a little slow, but once you get past the set up you are immediately pulled into the action when the story breaks off into separate sections for each sibling's course of life. These sections were made especially compelling by the incorporation of historic events, which helped me develop an emotional connection with the characters. The supernatural aspect wasn't as believable for me, but the author created a heartbreaking and elaborate family history with great emphasis on fate vs. choice, surviving vs. living, and the meaning of death vs. one's own legacy.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com