If you knew the day you were going to die, how would you choose to live? This is the question at the heart – and on the cover – of American author Chloe Benjamin’s second novel, The Immortalists (her first, The Anatomy of Dreams, was not published in the UK). Given the catchy Hollywood-style pitch, it is little surprise that the book has been snapped up by publishers across the globe and a TV adaptation is already in the works. Less predictable is just how engaging this bittersweet novel turns out to be.
Benjamin’s story starts in a sweltering New York apartment during the summer of 1969. The four Gold siblings are restless. Something, it seems, “is happening to everyone but them”. The oldest, Varya, is 13, the youngest, Simon, only seven, but it is 11-year-old Daniel who hears about the woman on Hester Street who can predict the exact date you will die, and nine-year-old Klara who summons up the courage to knock on her door. The experience unnerves them all. None of them wants to talk about it. Not until nine years later, shaken by the unexpected death of their father, do they finally share their dates with one another.
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