The Immortalists

'Immersive and impressive' The Sunday Times ' Benjamin writes with verve and charm ' Guardian The NEW YORK TIMES Top Ten Bestseller It's 1969, and holed up in a grimy tenement building in New York's Lower East Side is a travelling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the date they will die. The four Gold children, too young for what they're about to hear, sneak out to learn their fortunes. Such prophecies could be dismissed as trickery and nonsense, yet the Golds bury theirs deep. Over the years that follow they attempt to ignore, embrace, cheat and defy the 'knowledge' given to them that day - but it will shape the course of their lives forever. 'Such is her dazzling sureness of touch that you wonder if here is a writer who is truly capable of anything' Daily Mail

The Immortalists worms its way under your skin. Benjamin writes with verve and charm and her four protagonists are resolutely real. She is particularly good at the sibling bond, the unbreakable ties that bind brothers and sisters together even as they drive each other to distraction.It is a testament to Benjamin's skill that, as her story pulls focus from the wild nightclubs of the Castro and the glitter of Las Vegas to life in the suburbs, as youthful exhilaration and recklessness give way to grief and anger frustration and fear, the novel itself does not narrow but instead grows deeper and more absorbing

Préface
If you knew the date you were going to die, then how would you live your life? asks this bestselling, critically acclaimed novel.

Auteur

Chloe Benjamin is the author of The Anatomy of Dreams, which won the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award and was longlisted for the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. She lives with her husband in Wisconsin.

Texte du rabat

Chloe Benjamin's THE IMMORTALISTS, is dazzling family drama for fans of WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES and FATES AND FURIES. 'It's amazing how good this book is' Karen Joy Fowler

It's 1969, and holed up in a grimy tenement building in New York's Lower East Side is a travelling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the date they will die. The four Gold children, too young for what they're about to hear, sneak out to learn their fortunes.

Over the years that follow, the siblings must choose how to live with the phrophecies the fortune-teller gave them that day. Will they accept, ignore, cheat, or defy them? Golden-boy Simon escapes to San Francisco, searching for love; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician; eldest son Daniel tries to control fate as an army doctor after 9/11; and bookish Varya looks to science for the answers she craves.

A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists is a story about how we live, how we die, and what we do with the time we have.

Résumé

'Once I started reading The Immortalists, I resented every moment I had to spend away from the book until I'd finished' Stylist

'A compelling and utterly absorbing read with virtuoso storytelling on display' Sunday Express

It's 1969, and holed up in a grimy tenement building in New York's Lower East Side is a travelling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the date they will die. The four Gold children, too young for what they're about to hear, sneak out to learn their fortunes.

Such prophecies could be dismissed as trickery and nonsense, yet the Golds bury theirs deep. Over the years that follow they attempt to ignore, embrace, cheat and defy the 'knowledge' given to them that day - but it will shape the course of their lives forever.

Readers love The Immortalists:

'I read this book over three days and will remember it for a lifetime' *

'This is a book that I never wanted to finish reading. I truly enjoyed each single word of it' *

'A book of epic proportions. . . mystical and hugely memorable . . . I can't praise it highly enough. A must read!' *

'Deserves all the noise around it' *

'One of those books I wish I could un-read so I could read it all over again for the first time' *

'A perfect book club read' *