The Immortalists
Book description
'Boundlessly moving' Observer
'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…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Immortalists as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I love the magical realism aspect of this novel, which Benjamin handles with such a deft hand you don’t question whether or not the impossible is possible. A fortune teller’s prediction and old-world superstition create a heavy weight that exquisitely-drawn characters must navigate. The power of belief and its effect on destiny is a complex topic. Is it good or bad to know our future? Should we act on what we’ve been told? Should we ignore it? If we believe something does that make it happen? If we disbelieve does it not happen? Every character is a gem, including Klara:…
From Deborah's list on inducing laughter and tears on the same page.
This is a novel that approaches grief from a different direction: what if you were told the exact date you were going to die and had to live the rest of your life with that knowledge? In 1969 New York, four siblings visit a traveling psychic who gives each of them this information. The rest of the novel unfolds from that moment, as they try to figure out how to move on from there. A lyrical and sprawling novel, spun from a question that most of us have considered, but few of us would really want answered.
From Carolyn's list on characters dealing with grief.
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