He is constantly trying (and failing) to keep his family safe and tightly knit. Daniel, who was the one to instigate the visit to the fortune teller in the first place, feels a lifelong sense of guilt for having caused his siblings so much mental turmoil. They all feel equally believable and each sibling acts according to his or her own interior logic. Varya steadily isolates herself from people and relationships, choosing to throw herself into her scientific research to prolong life.īenjamin beautifully presents these four individual lives, with their own enviable ups and tragic downs. Daniel falls in love and becomes an army doctor. Daniel and Varya, the older pair, opt for more conventional, quiet lives closer to home and their widowed mother. Klara dedicates her life to becoming a stage magician, living a freewheeling existence trying to make ends meet. Simon flees to San Francisco where he can explore his sexuality freely and, given the naivete of the times, rather recklessly. Whichever one readers choose probably indicates which of the Golds' lives, and consequently which chunk of the novel most resonates with them. It is up to the reader to decide, and without spoiling anything, suffice to say that there's plenty of evidence for both sides of the argument. What makes it even more gripping is that she never makes it explicit whether the psychic's predictions are self-fulfilling or not. This simple but effective mystical conceit allows Benjamin to expertly play with our notions of pre- and self-determinism. As the siblings regroup outside, visibly distressed, they realize that whether the fortune teller is genuine or a charlatan is almost inconsequential these predictions are going to haunt them for the rest of their numbered days.Īfter this intriguing prologue, The Immortalists shifts into four distinct sections set over the next fifty years, each focusing on one of the Gold siblings as they forge their own identities in light of their fortunes. One by one they enter the psychic's apartment, from youngest to oldest Simon, Klara, Daniel, and finally Varya to receive their fortune, which they are warned to keep secret. On a summer day in 1969 in New York City, the Gold children agree to seek out a mysterious neighborhood fortune teller who is rumored to be able to predict the day you will die. Spanning five decades, Chloe Benjamin's The Immortalists is a sweeping tale of four siblings that explores weighty, primal themes of life, death, and family.

The immortalists review