The Immortalists

 

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

Fiction

2018 G. P. Putnam's Sons

Finished April 13, 2023

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

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 struggles to maintain 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.

Both a dazzling family love story and 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.

I have never visited a psychic or been told my fortune. I have no interest to know what lies ahead, and more specifically, I have no desire to know the exact date of my death. In Chloe Benjamin's captivating novel, in the summer of 1969, four siblings seek out a traveling psychic who does exactly that; she tells each one exactly when they will die, and for the remainder of their lives (whether long or short), their dates are never forgotten.

Earlier this year I read another novel (The Measure by Nikki Erlick) that explores the concept of learning one's fate. I enjoyed that story, but Chloe Benjamin's literary work is a better read with fully developed characters and a compelling narrative. While somewhat predictable (particularly if you believe the Gold siblings' fates are bound by the psychic's predictions), the unraveling of details made for a page-turning read. The novel spans over forty years, and Benjamin incorporates historical details from each era.

Perhaps nothing would have happened were it not the pit of summer, with a month and a half of humid boredom behind them and a month and a half ahead. There is no air-conditioning in the apartment, and this year--the summer of 1969-- it seems something is happening to everyone but them. People are getting wasted at Woodstock and singing "Pinball Wizard" and watching Midnight Cowboy, which none of the Gold children are allowed to see. They're rioting outside Stonewall, ramming the doors with uprooted parking meters, smashing windows and jukeboxes. They're being murdered in the most gruesome way imaginable, with chemical explosives and guns that can fire five hundred and fifty bullets in succession, their faces transmitted with horrifying immediacy to the television in the Golds' kitchen. "They're walking on the mother-fucking moon," said Daniel, who has begun to use this sort of language, but only at a safe remove from their mother. James Earl Ray is sentenced, and so is Sirhan Sirhan, and all the while the Golds play jacks or darts or rescue Zoya from an open pipe behind the oven, which she seems convinced is her rightful home.

But something else created the atmosphere required for this pilgrimage: they are siblings, this summer, in a way they will never be again. Next year, Varya will go to the Catskills with her friend Aviva. Daniel will be immersed in the private rituals of the neighborhood boys, leaving Klara and Simon to their own devices. In 1969, though, they are still a unit, yoked as if it isn't possible to be anything but.

The Immortalists can easily be read in a day or two, and is the sort of book that is ideal for a long flight or a cold, dreary afternoon. If you happened to miss it, as I did, when it first came out, it's worth your while to get a copy and give it a read. For those who avoid magical realism or fantasy, you need not worry. Those elements are absent in this tale. It may not wind up on my "Best of 2023" list, but it's one I won't soon forget.

An imaginative and satisfying family saga... The author has written 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. Publisher's Weekly