9780735218406 Chloe Benjamin:  The Immortalists, Putnam (Penguin Random House US), C format paperback in export markets, 9780735213180 hardback, pub date January 9^th, 2018

I just finished “The Immortalists” by Chloe Benjamin, a 28 year old immensely gifted writer. How someone so young can write so brilliantly and wisely is really quite astonishing.  I absolutely loved this book.

What happens to your life and that of your 3 other siblings if a fortune teller reveals the date of your death while still quite young?  This is exactly what happens to the Gold children, Simon, Clara, Daniel and Varya, growing up in the Lower East Side of New York in the late sixties. 

These prophecies affect their lives deeply for the next five decades.  Simon escapes his Jewish controlling mother Gertie to the West Coast to become a dancer, hitting San Francisco’s gay scene just as the gay movement in the 1980’s erupts. Clara leaves with him to San Francisco to fulfill her childhood dream of becoming a female magician.  Daniel is to become a medical doctor doing service in the Army and Varya choses a career in science doing longevity studies. 

 

One chapter is dedicated to each of them as the reader witnesses how their life paths is overshadowed by thinking they know the date of their deaths. I found the book at times heartbreaking and sad but also quite humorous and uplifting. How knowledge like this can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy is hardly surprising. 
 

"The Immortalist" is an incredibly well spun story and I would expect to see the book to become a word by mouth bestseller, a book club favorite,  hitting the NY Times Bestseller list hopefully. I love the beautiful cover design, hope it was kept from the proof I read.