It had taught her to create her own opportunities, to turn rock into water and water to blood. If nothing else, Judaism had taught her to keep running, no matter who tried to hold her hostage. We can see how each character copes with the two when they seek answers from one while questioning the other: Religion doesn’t seem to be so far off from magic - their mysterious expiration date can somehow be intertwined with their take on Judaism. Each character carves a different path as they grapple with their looming death date and fulfill their own notions of a meaningful life.ĭespite their diverse paths, the siblings’ shared Jewish upbringing (and their guilt-tripping Jewish mother) seeps into all of their headspaces.

While the novel contains mystical elements and asks larger-than-life questions, it is also a relatable story that deals with the complexities of relationships and loss.Įach chapter focuses on one sibling, taking the reader on four distinct journeys spanning fifty years. They seek out a fortune teller who claims to know when each of them will die what they find out ends up changing the course of their lives. After their father dies, the four siblings, Simon, Klara, Daniel, and Varya, become preoccupied with the idea of death. If you found out when you were going to die, how would your life change?Ĭhloe Benjamin fixates on this question in her novel The Immortalists, a story about the Golds, a Jewish family living in New York City in the late 1960s.

The immortalists author