The Immortalists

SUMMARY

“She knows that stories have the power to change things: the past and the future, even the present.”

It’s the summer of 1969 (Bryan Adams anyone?) and the Gold children are bored. Varya, Daniel, Klara and Simon have all been stuck in a hot two bedroom apartment in the lower East Side for over a month with nothing to do. They decided to go see a fortune teller that Daniel has heard about who apparently has the ability to tell someone the day they will die. The children cycle between morbid curiosity and denial, but they end up going anyway. One by one these children go by themselves (??) into this lady’s apartment, and one by one these children get the date of their supposed death.

The older more logical children dismiss the experience out of hand, but the younger children have been affected by it to some extent. The older children share their dates with each other, but Simon is only willing to share the information that he dies young.

A few years go by and the children grow up. The book moves through each of the Gold children in turn. Simon and Klara move to San Francisco in the 80’s together. Simon (knowing he is going to die young) throws himself into the San Francisco gay scene. Klara becomes obsessed with death defying magic tricks and performs in clubs. Daniel becomes a doctor and serves in the Iraq War after 9/11, ends up with PTSD and craves a life of stability, and Varya becomes a scientist working on anti aging.

VERDICT

I flew through this book in two days. I have heard very mixed reviews about this book, but decided I was in the mood for what ever this book is (magical reality? Fiction?).

The structure of this book was very pleasing to me. It’s broken into five parts (the prologue, Simon, Klara, Daniel, and Varya) and each part picks up where the last part left off. Chloe’s writing is very smooth and descriptive. She takes us through each of the Gold Children’s lives in all the colors and shades that life has to offer us. This is not a totally comfortable read, because you know the characters will most likely die, but you can’t help and get attached to the characters.

*Also the book starts off by describing the developing body of a 13 year old girl…but I digress.

For example, I got really attached to Simon. I felt for him as a young gay man hiding in a strictly Jewish family. He fled to San Francisco to escape inheriting his dad’s sewing business. And in San Francisco he was really able to come into himself. Unfortunately for him, he decided to do this in the mid 70’s. I spent much of the book going, “Simon you idiot, use protection,” as he slept with half of San Francisco’s gay community.

The main question woven through the book is the question that stays with the reader long after the book is over. Was the fortune teller right, were the Gold children supposed to die then, or did the information guide their lives and drive them to the lifestyles that would eventually kill them? I usually avoid magical realism but I really enjoyed this dip into the pool .

FINAL NOTES

*Magical Realism Lite

*No Happy Ending

*factually correct about places

Kaitlyn’s Rating: 4/5 Stars