The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
A dazzling family love story reminiscent of Everything I Never Told You from a novelist heralded as a great new talent by Lorrie Moore. 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. In search of one thing they can know for sure, the Gold children -- four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness -- sneak out to hear their fortunes.
Though the siblings keep their dates secret from one another, their prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to San Francisco's dance scene, searching for love. Dreamy Klara becomes a magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor, hoping to control fate; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.
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.
