By: Chloe Benjamin
ISBN: 0735213186
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication Date: 1/9/2018
Format: Hardcover
My Rating: 3 Stars A dazzling family love story reminiscent of Everything I Never Told You from a novelist heralded by Lorrie Moore as a “great new talent.” 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.
Review to follow.
Advance Praise
One of...
Entertainment Weekly’s “Must-read Books for 2018”
Elle’s “19 of the Best Books to Read This Winter”
Harper's Bazaar’s “10 New Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2018”
Southern Living's "Books Coming Out This Winter That We Can’t Wait to Read"
Popsugar’s “25 Must-Read Books for Fall”
Bustle's "35 Most-Anticipated Fiction Books of 2018"
Nylon's "50 Books We Can’t Wait To Read In 2018"
Goop's "12 Books for Winter Break"
Book Riot's "101 Books Coming Out in 2018 That You Should Mark Down Now"
Elite Daily's "2018 Book Releases That'll Make Reading More Your New Year's Resolution"
"Search no further for your inaugural 2018 book club pick.”—Elle
“Thrilling.”—Marie Claire
“Compelling.”—InStyle
“A moving novel about the deep bonds of family.”—Southern Living
“Beautifully written and intricately detailed, it's impossible to put down and sure to be one of those books you've got to re-read again and again.”—Popsugar
"Intriguing premise...Beautifully written story.”—AARP
"“If you’ve ever had an existential thought in your life, you’ll see yourself in every sibling—in their gut-wrenchingly human existence—and be reminded that life is by turns complicated, fun, disastrous, painful, and out of our control.”—Goop
“An imaginative and satisfying family saga...A cleverly structured novel steeped in Jewish lore and the history of four decades of American life. The four Gold siblings are wonderful creations, and in Benjamin’s expert hands their story becomes a moving meditation on fate, faith, and the family ties that alternately hurt and heal.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Bewitching and provocative...Benjamin has created mesmerizing characters and richly suspenseful predicaments in this profound and glimmering novel of death’s ever-shocking inevitability and life’s wondrously persistent whirl of chance and destiny.”—Booklist (starred review)
“The narratives [Benjamin] offers are intriguingly intertwined and beautifully rendered....Thought-provoking and entertaining.”—Library Journal (starred review)
"The book world has been abuzz about Chloe Benjamin's The Immortalists for months, and with good reason."—Bookish
"Readers are in for a surprise with this lush, sprawling novel."—Brava Magazine
“Chloe Benjamin’s The Immortalists is the very best kind of literary thriller, its suspense deriving from characters we care about deeply and surprises that feel embedded in our shared humanity. As profound a meditation on destiny as readers are likely to encounter.”—Richard Russo
“For someone who loves stories about brothers and sisters, as I do, The Immortalists is about as good as it gets. A memorable and heartfelt look at what might happen to a family who knows too much. It's amazing how good this book is.”—Karen Joy Fowler
“A beautiful, compassionate, and even joyful novel. Chloe Benjamin has written an inspiring book that makes you think hard about what you want to do with the time you’re given. This is not really a book about dying—it's a book about how to live.”—Nathan Hill, author of The Nix
“A literary tour de force...Benjamin subtly but trenchantly examines issues of mortality and immortality, destiny and self-determination, magic and science, the past and the future, and the trials and joys of our fleeting but precious existences. A beautifully written page-turner, unpredictable and unforgettable, The Immortalists is ultimately a thoughtful and tender look at how we live our lives in our fraught and perilous times.”—Judith Claire Mitchell, author of A Reunion of Ghosts
About the Author
Chloe Benjamin is an author from San Francisco, CA. Her first novel, The Anatomy of Dreams (Atria/Simon & Schuster, 2014), received the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award and was long listed for the 2014 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her second novel, The Immortalists, is forthcoming from Putnam/Penguin Random House in January 2018. The Immortalists will be published in over thirteen countries, and TV/film rights have sold to the Jackal Group.
A graduate of Vassar College and of the M.F.A. in fiction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chloe also teaches workshops on the business of publishing, from writing a novel to finding a literary agent. She lives with her husband in Madison, WI. Read More
