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Your Next Read: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

The Immortalists

Chloe Benjamin


What would you do if you knew when you would die?

This question is confronted in the pages of The Immortalists where Chloe Benjamin shares how four siblings would handle the news. The opening of the novel presents us with the Gold siblings as they visit a gypsy who promises to share the dates of their deaths. Each child discovers their date one by one and the knowledge will affect the rest of their lives.

Chloe Benjamin is on book tour currently for The Immortalists and it was such a treat to get to see her in person discussing her novel. Although not her first published work, I do believe this is her first major bestseller and it is making waves. The Skimm, which I read regularly for my daily news digest, has recommended it to all their readers, although I am proud to say I had already picked up the book before they jumped on the bandwagon.

Saturday, January 13th in the afternoon at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena was the place to be for this fantastic author signing. It had been released just a few days before on January 9th so except for those lucky individuals with a galley it was mostly an unknown story to a majority of the audience. The theme of the novel is so intriguing that it was a no brainer to attend the book signing.

Vroman's is a wonderful venue to begin with. They host author events regularly in their upstairs area and typically have plenty of seating for attendees. I arrived early so I had time to purchase a fresh copy of the book and then browsed for a bit before the event started. Joining her for the talk was Karah Preiss, who shared an easy conversation with Chloe about the novel and what the audience could expect. Chloe read an excerpt from the opening of the novel, when the eldest child Varya meets the gypsy woman, as well as an excerpt from Klara's adulthood.

The questions this book raises are incredibly interesting and difficult to answer. Or maybe the answers are not difficult at all, but the subject of death is naturally uncomfortable to imagine in the first place. The most pressing question asked, as you might imagine, is "Would you want to know?" After learning their death dates the Gold siblings struggled with the knowledge. Does knowing you will die young make you live more life or scare you into hiding? Does having a date long in the future make you reckless or protective of yourself? Chloe asked everyone in the audience if they would want to know and it was almost unanimously a no vote. Although one lady sitting near me did say she would want to know as the information would not scare her.

Another interesting question someone asked Chloe during the Q&A regarded personality traits of the siblings. He mentioned how common birth order is discussed of children and asked if death order would be similar? Chloe was very careful not to divulge any spoilers from the novels and said the idea was very intriguing. Having now read the novel myself I have to say there is an element of personality that is affected by the deaths of your siblings. You can feel how the characters are changed by knowing when each other will leave, even when some claim not to believe the prophecies in the first place. Their narratives are all driven by this taboo knowledge, not just of their own dates but of those of their loved ones too.

At at comfortable 354 pages, this is a great read that is easy to get swept up in. I found myself wanting to push through to the end of each section of the story and would read long chunks in single sittings without realizing how much I had devoured. The plot flows so smoothly through the characters' lives and pulls you along just aching to know what happens next. I especially appreciate novels where you can feels the nostalgia and history present in the pages. I like to not just know what is happened, but when and where as it connects to the wider world. This novel has that in spades. From San Francisco in the 1980's to the medical advances from aging in the 2010's, you can feel how time affects the stories being shared.

Want to know more? Check out this interview from NPR or this Q&A from ABA. And see the listings for The Immortalists on Book Marks and Goodreads.

Want to see her on tour? Dates still available through the end of June 2018.
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