Paromjit's Reviews > The Immortalists

Chloe Benjamin's epic The Immortalists has us considering some of the most fundamental and complex questions about life and how we live it. It is thought provoking as it asks does knowledge of our mortality make us live our life to the utmost or makes us fearful, guilty, and seek to outwit death? It is 1969 and in Manhattan, New York, the 4 Jewish Gold children seek a light hearted encounter with a gypsy psychic, who tells each of them their prophecies and their date of death. They cannot break free of this knowledge which shapes their futures for the following five decades. This is a story of family, loss, secrets, regrets, sibling relationships, death and above all else, about life.

The lives of each of the children is followed to the last moments in their lives. Klara and Simon are close as siblings, Simon cannot wait to leave home, this culminates in the two of them escaping to San Francisco. The prophecies determine that they live life to the max and at the edge. The gay Simon embarks on a search for love, plunging into life with abandon, displaying a reckless disregard for his own safety in his actions, ignoring all warnings. Klara pursues her obsession for magic, ignited by her grandmother, as she becomes a magician, The Immortalist, playing with ideas of reality. Daniel and Varya are resentful at how they have been left behind with their mother. Daniel becomes a miitary medic whilst Varya seeks the answers to living longer as a researcher. Their lives are considerably more stable but more strewn with guilt and fear.

Benjamin writes in beautiful vibrant prose, creating a compelling and philosophical narrative that draws in the reader effortlessly. The debate as to whether our lives can be foretold, our destiny written in the stars, or can we be architects of our future, determining the paths we choose to take, is the raison d'etre for this novel. Do we burn brightly in the lives we live in the full knowledge we are going to die, or do we allow ourselves to fall prey to our insecurities, guilt, and fear as the consequent possibilities that life offers shrink? There are the inevitable questions of how this has an impact on how religion and country can come to be viewed. This is a profoundly moving book, although uneven on occasion, with disturbed and complicated characters pushed into confronting their mortality from a young age. I much preferred Simon and Klara to Daniel and Varya as they exuded a greater hold on my imagination. This is a perfect read for those wanting to explore ideas and concepts through a fascinating and memorable collection of siblings living through a significant and turbulent period of history. Highly recommended! Many thanks to Headline for an ARC.