The Immortalists

Chloe Benjamin G.P. Putnam’s Sons

To describe Chloe Benjamin’s second novel, The Immortalists, as a story about the evolution of a family would be true, but wholly insignificant for the breadth and depth of this amazing work of fiction.

The story begins on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in

1969. The Gold siblings — two girls and two boys ranging in age from seven to 13 — innocently make their way to a travelling soothsayer who predicts exact dates of death. Each child visits the woman separately, but they leave her apartment together — frightened, stunned silent and forever altered.

Benjamin unfurls a dense, yet beautifully spun and satisfying tale that spans 50 years and goes from New York to San Francisco and back. The children grow up and grow old; they find love and suffer loss; and, throughout the years, they live with the knowledge — true or not — of when they’ll die.

Eldest Varya becomes an obsessive-compulsive scientist with a secret. Physician Daniel clears recruits for military service. Klara plies her trade as a magician in Las

Vegas and Simon explores his sexuality in San Francisco.

Each sibling, as well as family matriarch Gertie, receives equally sure-footed literary treatment in Benjamin’s capable hands. Her spare, yet gorgeously robust prose belies her youth (Benjamin graduated from Vassar College in 2010) and every page is imbued with her obvious storytelling skill.

Begin 2018 with the book that could easily retain the year’s top spot, The Immortalists is a can’t put-down, makes-you-think tale of a not-so-average U.S. family.