The Immortalists (Tinder Press 2018) by Chloe Benjamin has been on my TBR pile for a while and I’m so glad I finally got to it. What a unique premise; what an astounding book. Featuring the changing dynamics of relationships, a literary thrill, a family saga spanning decades and a touch of magical realism, The Immortalists will transport you as you are immersed in the life of the Gold family, and as you ponder the question: If you knew the day you were going to die, how would you choose to live?
In 1969, the four Gold children are a tight and close-knit group. But when their curiosity gets the better of their fear, they enter a grim tenement building in New York’s Lower East Side to seek out a travelling psychic who claims to be able to foretell the exact date of anyone’s death. The children are too young to understand the ramifications of these confronting predictions, which shadow their whole lives as they simultaneously dismiss the fortune-telling as mumbo-jumbo, while also succumbing to it taking root in their minds and shadowing every decision they make as they grow into adulthood. They must choose how to live their lives with the prophesies: will they accept, ignore, cheat or defy them?
Varya seeks a career in science to search for the answers she craves; Daniel attempts to come to terms with fate as an army doctor; Klara follows her dreams to become a Las Vegas magician; and the youngest, Simon, escapes to San Francisco in the eighties to find the love and the lifestyle he cannot admit to his family at home.
This novel begins with the section of the children visiting the psychic and introduces their family with all its flaws and insecurities, petty jealousies and loyalties. Then the subsequent four sections are each devoted to the perspective of each of one of the children as they grow older. Each of them must deal with their own demons. Each of them must decide how to live, how to spend the time they have allotted to them, and whether to believe the prophesy. This book is mystical, whimsical, imaginative, compassionate, poignant, sad, joyful and wonderfully memorable. The characters are as real as if they have stepped out of the pages. Another great book club read, with lots of points for discussion.