If you knew when you were going to die, what would you do with that information, and how might it affect the way you live your life?
This is the heady topic Chloe Benjamin tackles in her latest novel, The Immortalists. Her book opens with the four Gold children, Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon, as they visit a fortune teller and are each told the date they will die. Starting with the story of Simon, the baby of the family, we are led through their individual narratives and into their adult lives. We see how they handle their given death dates, and how the knowledge colors and weighs on their life story.
The novel spans 5 decades, and takes us through the Gold’s life as an ever-shrinking family. Were the predictions from the fortune teller true or mumbo-jumbo? Does that really matter? It’s fascinating to see these characters struggle, each in their own personal way, with having that date looming over them. Benjamin has written an incredible family saga that tackles the oftentimes twisted bonds of familial love and the questions of what is destiny versus what is choice.
Friends know I’m a sucker for books set in New York City, and I’ll admit that was what initially drew me to this novel. The story does start out in New York, but quickly shifts to San Francisco and beyond. This is a book that will make you think! A phrase that came to mind when reading this book was, “it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years that matter”. This book explores that phrase in four different ways. And for the record, no, I would not want to know the date I’m going to die. Would you?