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Manipulated Into Caring

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

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For a tale of four siblings bound together by a traumatic experience with a fortune teller when they were young, The Immortalists is not terribly enthralling. Varya, Simon, Klara, and Daniel, the siblings, meet an old woman in a cramped and hot apartment. They have saved up and pooled their allowance; they overheard other kids in the neighborhood saying that “the woman on Hester Street” could tell you the date of your death. She gives gives our fearless foursome their dates; they do not share them with […]

The Immortalists

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

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The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin is the story of four siblings, Varya, Daniel, Klara and Simon Gold. On a hot summer day in 1969, the four pay a visit to a woman who can tell them when they will die. Each sibling must come to terms with the knowledge in their own way and each faces the question of whether that knowledge informs the way they live. Complicating each of their lives is their relationships to each other and their parents, Gertie and Saul. Those […]

Nothing more than a conjuror of cheap tricks

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

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How would you live your life if you knew when you were going to die? That’s the high-concept idea behind Chloe Benjamin’s The Immortalists, which opens in 1969 Brooklyn with the four Gold children, aged 7 to 13, visiting a fortune teller who gives each the exact date of his or her death. Three of the four are upset by their predictions, and each reacts differently in the following years.  Simon leaves home at 16 and follows his sister to San Francisco where he can […]

“The Power of Words […] They Hooked into Invididuals and Wormed Through Generations.”

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

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I am but one of a number of Cannonballers who have read The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin so far this year! And for the most part I enjoyed it, as I know some others did. Though I think the front half really got me more so than the latter half, which is not to say that things don’t all come together and create a beautiful story, but I think it really boils down to feeling more of a connection with some of the characters whose […]

A lively book about death

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

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Yeah, I don’t think I would want to know when I would die. This book chronicles the story of the four Gold children, raised in New York City, who are quite young when they hear from somebody who heard from somebody that there’s a witch woman who can tell you the precise day when you will die. Being children – especially being a group of children, always another one there to egg you on – they visit her and, one by one, come out … […]

A Bit Like the Last Six Minutes of Six Feet Under

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

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I finished Chloe Benjamin’s second novel, The Immortalists, over two months ago but for various reasons (involving the end of an academic semester and a trip to China) haven’t sat down to complete my review.  However, last night a chance discussion at my book club reminded me that I wanted to get my thoughts/impressions of this book on paper now rather than later. The Immortalists is our selection for later this fall, and one of our members had just gotten a copy of the novel from […]



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