Chapter 4
Simon's Flight: Embracing Life in the Face of Death
Knowing he has the shortest lifespan of all his siblings, Simon makes a radical choice: he abandons his predetermined path at the family tailor shop and flees with Klara to San Francisco in 1978. His decision embodies the novel's central question-if your time is limited, do you live cautiously or burn brightly?
Simon chooses the latter, arriving in San Francisco's Castro district during its heyday as a gay mecca. The city represents everything his sheltered Lower East Side upbringing lacked: freedom, self-expression, and sexual liberation. When he first steps off the bus, he experiences an immediate sense of belonging-"This is it. This is where I'm supposed to be."
Despite having no skills or experience, Simon secures a job as a platform dancer at PURP, the club beneath their apartment. His first night dancing proves transformative: "Initially awkward and self-conscious, Simon eventually finds his rhythm when he stops copying others and surrenders to the music." This surrender becomes Simon's philosophy-embracing pleasure, risk, and authenticity rather than safety and obligation.
Simon's journey deepens when he begins ballet training, discovering unexpected joy in its discipline and rigor. Despite the physical agony of those first classes-"finding the exercises baffling and physically excruciating"-he perseveres, determined to transform himself into something beautiful and powerful. His dedication pays off when he joins the Corps ballet company and eventually performs his first starring role as Icarus-a fitting character for someone flying too close to the sun.
Simon's relationship with Robert, a talented black dancer, reveals his struggle to balance his hunger for experience with emotional vulnerability. When Robert asks what he fears, Simon cannot bring himself to reveal his visit to the fortune teller and his predicted early death. Yet this knowledge drives his choices-his feverish pursuit of pleasure, his resistance to commitment, and ultimately, his willingness to take sexual risks despite the emerging AIDS crisis.
The tragedy of Simon's story is that his prophecy becomes self-fulfilling. By embracing a lifestyle of sexual freedom in early-1980s San Francisco, he contracts AIDS and dies young, just as predicted. Yet in his final days, he expresses no regrets, telling Klara: "I wouldn't have come to San Francisco, met Robert, or learned to dance without the fortune teller's prediction." His story raises profound questions about whether living authentically for a short time is preferable to a longer life constrained by fear and convention.
Chapter 5
Klara's Magic: Illusion as Reality
After Simon's death in 1982, Klara channels her grief into her magic career, adopting the stage name "The Immortalist"-a name that reveals her obsession with transcending death. Of all the siblings, Klara most deeply believes in the fortune teller's powers, perhaps because she recognizes something of herself in the woman's abilities.
Klara's relationship with magic is complex and multifaceted. On one level, it's her artistic expression and livelihood. She masters difficult techniques like the Breakaway and DeKolta's Vanishing Birdcage, performing at venues across San Francisco. On another level, magic represents her rebellion against rationality and convention-the same forces that constrained her mother Gertie, who once aspired to be an intellectual before marriage and children redirected her life.
Most significantly, magic becomes Klara's way of processing her grief and connecting with the dead. After Simon dies, she begins experiencing what she believes are "spirit knocks" from her brother, attempting to communicate messages from beyond. These perceived communications intensify her belief in the supernatural and her conviction that consciousness might survive death.
Klara's magic career flourishes when she meets Raj, a mechanic who becomes her assistant, husband, and father to their daughter Ruby. Together they perfect Charles Morritt's mysterious Second Sight trick that has stumped magicians for a century. Their performance creates an unmatched connection between them: "even years later, performing Second Sight creates an unmatched connection between them."
As January 1, 1991-her prophesied death date-approaches, Klara's mental state deteriorates. She becomes increasingly paranoid, alcoholic, and neglectful of Ruby. Her belief in the fortune teller's prediction becomes a self-destructive obsession. In a Las Vegas hotel room, she ultimately chooses to fulfill the prophecy herself, hanging herself exactly as predicted.
The tragic irony of Klara's story is that her belief in magic-which initially gave her freedom and purpose-ultimately traps her. By believing so completely in the fortune teller's powers, she makes the prediction come true. Her final thoughts reveal her conflicted relationship with fate: "As knocking continues and someone calls her name more urgently, Klara embraces her fate on January 1st, 1991, just as the woman promised."
Chapter 6
Daniel's Burden: The Weight of Knowledge
Daniel, the second-oldest Gold sibling, chooses the most conventional path-becoming a military doctor after medical school. His career choice reflects his desire for order, control, and moral certainty in a world that took his father too soon and his younger brother shortly after.
Unlike his siblings, Daniel initially seems to reject the fortune teller's influence, building a stable life with his wife Mira in Kingston, New York. He works as a chief medical officer at the Military Entrance Processing Station, screening recruits for service. Yet beneath his composed exterior lies deep unresolved trauma about the prophecy and his family's fracturing.
Daniel's story reveals how even those who appear to reject superstition can be haunted by it. As January 13, 2006-his predicted death date-approaches, his behavior becomes increasingly erratic. He grows obsessed with finding the fortune teller, whom he discovers is named Bruna Costello and appears on the FBI's Most Wanted list. His fixation reveals his need to prove she was a fraud, thereby freeing himself from her prediction.
The pressure of his job during wartime adds to Daniel's psychological burden. When Colonel Bertram criticizes him for rejecting a recruit with asthma, suggesting he "take a break," Daniel faces a moral dilemma. The military has lowered its standards due to desperation for recruits, writing waivers for criminal convictions and mental health issues. Daniel's insistence on following medical protocols puts his career at risk, adding professional stress to his personal turmoil.
Daniel's relationship with his family reveals his complex role as both protector and judge. When Simon and Klara flee to San Francisco, he becomes furious, taking incompletes at school to support their hysterical mother. Years later, after Klara's death, he meets FBI agent Eddie O'Donoghue, who investigated her suicide. Daniel shares his suspicion about the fortune teller's prediction coming true, revealing his continued belief despite his outward skepticism.
The Thanksgiving dinner scene powerfully illustrates Daniel's inner conflict. When a heated argument erupts between Daniel and Raj about magic and politics, Daniel attacks Raj verbally, claiming his career is meaningless compared to military service. His cruelty stems from his need to assert control and meaning in a world that seems increasingly chaotic and predetermined.
Daniel's story culminates in his confrontation with Bruna Costello on his death date. Finding her trailer in Ohio, he holds her at gunpoint, demanding explanations. Their conversation reveals the fortune teller's own complex motivations-she left her criminal family hoping to use her gift for good, believing that knowledge of death could help people live freely. When Eddie arrives to stop Daniel, the confrontation ends tragically with Daniel's death, fulfilling the prophecy he sought to disprove.
Chapter 7
Varya's Research: The Science of Immortality
Varya, the eldest Gold sibling, responds to the fortune teller's prophecy by attempting to control death itself. As a researcher at the Drake Institute for Research on Aging, she studies longevity in rhesus monkeys, seeking scientific ways to extend life. Her predicted death at age eighty-eight-the longest of all the siblings-gives her the luxury of time but also the burden of witnessing her siblings' earlier deaths.
Varya's character embodies the tension between science and superstition. Despite her rigorous scientific training, she cannot fully escape the fortune teller's influence. Her research into longevity represents her attempt to master mortality through rational means, yet her obsessive-compulsive behaviors reveal her deeper anxieties about contamination, illness, and death.
Her personal life reflects this control and isolation. She follows a strict caloric restriction diet based on her research, believing that "Hedonists don't tend to live very long." She avoids close relationships, maintaining rigid routines that keep others at a distance. When journalist Luke Van Galder arrives to write about her research, she's stiff and formal, establishing what she considers "professional dominance" while he appears friendly and curious.
Varya's relationship with her research subject Frida, a rhesus monkey on a hunger strike, becomes a powerful metaphor for her own self-imposed constraints. Like Frida, Varya has placed herself in a cage of isolation and restriction, believing it will protect her from harm. When she discovers Frida self-mutilating in isolation, chewing at her own forearm, the parallel to Varya's self-denial becomes clear.
The most shocking revelation in Varya's story comes when Luke reveals he's not actually a journalist but her son-the child she gave birth to in 1984 and immediately gave up for adoption. This confrontation forces Varya to face the consequences of her lifelong avoidance of attachment. When Luke asks why she gave him up, she confesses, "I was afraid of all the things that can go wrong when people are attached to each other."
Luke's accusation-"You're just like your monkeys, locked up and underfed"-cuts to the heart of Varya's self-imposed isolation. Her controlled lifestyle, which she defends as "pleasurable in its certainty," has actually diminished her capacity for genuine human connection. This realization leads to her breakdown when she attempts to comfort the distressed Frida, resulting in a serious monkey bite and hospitalization.
Varya's story concludes with the possibility of transformation. After recovering from her injury, she decides not to return to the Drake Institute, considering teaching instead. She finally shares the story of the fortune teller with her mother Gertie, who dismisses it as "junk." This conversation helps Varya realize that her parents gave their children "the gift of uncertainty, the freedom of an unsure fate," while she and her siblings had sought to control time, inadvertently drawing closer to the fortune teller's prophecies.
Chapter 8
The Power of Prophecy: Self-Fulfilling Destinies
A central question runs through "The Immortalists": Did the fortune teller actually predict the future, or did her prophecies become self-fulfilling because the Gold siblings believed them? Benjamin masterfully maintains this ambiguity throughout the novel, allowing readers to interpret events through either a mystical or psychological lens.
Each sibling's death occurs exactly as predicted, yet each also results from choices that seem to fulfill the prophecy. Simon embraces a lifestyle of sexual freedom in early-1980s San Francisco, increasing his risk of contracting AIDS. Klara's obsession with the supernatural leads to her suicide on the exact date foretold. Daniel's determination to confront the fortune teller places him in the dangerous situation that leads to his death. Only Varya remains alive at the novel's end, still decades from her predicted death date.
The novel suggests that knowledge itself-particularly knowledge of one's death-can be a dangerous burden. The fortune teller tells Varya, "Character is fate," implying that our inherent nature determines our destiny. Yet the siblings' stories demonstrate how foreknowledge shapes character, creating a circular causality where prediction influences behavior, which then fulfills the prediction.
This self-fulfilling aspect of prophecy appears most clearly in Klara's story. As her death date approaches, she becomes increasingly convinced she must take her own life to fulfill the prophecy. In her final moments, she imagines herself and the fortune teller "tumbling through the dark sky, illuminating the future together"-a powerful image suggesting her complicity in her own fate.
The fortune teller herself, when confronted by Daniel, offers a different perspective on her gift. She explains she wanted to help people by giving them knowledge of their deaths so they could "live freely." This raises profound questions about whether certainty about death liberates or constrains us. Simon seems to find freedom in his foreknowledge, living intensely and authentically, while Klara and Daniel become trapped by their predictions.
Perhaps most poignantly, the novel suggests that in seeking to know and control their fates, the siblings missed the "gift of uncertainty" their parents had given them. As Varya realizes near the end, her parents allowed their children the freedom of an unsure fate, while she and her siblings had sought to control time through foreknowledge, inadvertently drawing closer to the fortune teller's prophecies.
Chapter 9
Family Bonds: Unraveling and Reconnecting
At its heart, "The Immortalists" is a family saga, exploring how the Gold siblings' relationships evolve and fracture under the weight of their secret knowledge. The fortune teller's predictions create an invisible wall between them, as each processes this information differently and makes life choices that pull them in separate directions.
Saul's death accelerates this divergence. Simon and Klara flee to San Francisco, leaving Varya to care for their mother while Daniel tries to maintain family stability. When Simon calls home, Daniel answers, furious and desperate: "Daniel reveals he's taken incompletes at school to be with their hysterical mother." This conversation establishes the pattern of resentment that will characterize their relationship-Daniel feeling abandoned and burdened with responsibility, Simon seeking freedom from family obligations.
The siblings' relationships with their mother Gertie reveal different aspects of family dynamics. When Simon tries to leave home, Gertie catches him, leading to a heartbreaking confrontation where she seems to surrender to his need for independence while still expecting his eventual return. Later, when police bring Simon to call her, she disowns him, telling him not to come back-words she'll regret profoundly after his death.
Klara's return for Simon's burial highlights the painful reality of her long absence. Though Varya embraces her immediately, Daniel remains bitter, accusing her of keeping Simon's secrets and abandoning the family. These tensions reveal how grief can both unite and divide families, especially when complicated by unresolved conflicts and divergent life choices.
The next generation offers possibilities for healing. Klara's daughter Ruby becomes a bridge between family members, visiting her grandmother Gertie annually and performing magic shows that honor her mother's legacy while charting her own path as a future doctor. Ruby understands that "magic is just one way to keep people alive," suggesting a more balanced perspective than her mother's obsession with immortality.
In the novel's final scenes, Varya visits her mother at the Helping Hands retirement home during Ruby's annual visit. Their conversation about the fortune teller allows Varya to finally share this burden with her mother, who dismisses it as "junk." This exchange helps Varya recognize how their pursuit of certainty actually limited their freedom, while uncertainty-which they feared-might have been the greater gift.
Chapter 10
Legacy and Inheritance: What We Pass Down
Throughout "The Immortalists," Benjamin explores how traits, talents, and traumas pass from one generation to the next. The Gold siblings inherit not only their Jewish heritage and family traditions but also specific gifts and burdens that shape their destinies.
Klara inherits her magical abilities from her grandmother and namesake, Klara Kline, a Hungarian orphan who became a burlesque performer and later a circus performer. The elder Klara's signature "Jaws of Life" stunt-a dangerous feat that killed her in 1941 when she fell while suspended by her teeth across Times Square-becomes an obsession for the younger Klara, who recreates it despite the danger. This inheritance represents both gift and curse, providing Klara with her life's purpose while potentially sealing her fate.
Simon inherits his father's gold watch but rejects the family business, breaking the patrilineal tradition of tailoring. Yet he finds his own form of craftsmanship through dance, suggesting that talents transform rather than disappear across generations. His relationship with his sexuality-embraced fully despite the risks-contrasts with his father's more constrained life, suggesting each generation might live more authentically than the last.
Daniel inherits his sense of duty and responsibility, becoming the family protector after Saul's death. His military career and medical practice reflect his father's practicality and work ethic. Yet his obsession with the fortune teller reveals how trauma can also be inherited-his inability to save his father or brother fuels his desperate need to disprove the prophecies.
Varya inherits her mother's intellectual ambitions but pursues them more successfully, becoming a renowned researcher. Yet she also inherits Gertie's tendency toward emotional distance, amplified by her fear of attachment. Her giving up her son for adoption parallels Gertie's emotional withdrawal after Saul's death, suggesting patterns of avoidance repeat across generations.
Ruby, the novel's only third-generation character, inherits Klara's magical talents but approaches them differently. Unlike her mother, who used magic to escape reality and seek immortality, Ruby performs as a way to connect with others while pursuing a medical career. Her balanced approach suggests the possibility of breaking destructive patterns while honoring family legacies.
The novel's most powerful inherited object is Saul's gold watch, which passes from Simon to Klara to Varya. When Luke notices it on Varya's windowsill-"an heirloom Daniel recovered from Klara's possessions after her death"-it symbolizes how time itself becomes the family's most significant inheritance, both measured and mysterious, controlling yet ultimately uncontrollable.
Chapter 11
Finding Meaning in Mortality: The Novel's Philosophical Heart
"The Immortalists" ultimately asks: Does knowing when you'll die help you live more fully, or does it trap you in a predetermined path? Through the Gold siblings' divergent journeys, Benjamin explores how awareness of mortality shapes human experience and the search for meaning.
Simon's approach represents carpe diem-seizing the day knowing time is limited. His feverish pursuit of pleasure and authentic self-expression leads to a brief but vibrant life. In his final days, he expresses no regrets, telling Klara he wouldn't have lived so boldly without the fortune teller's prediction. His story suggests that embracing mortality can lead to greater authenticity and intensity of experience.
Klara seeks transcendence through magic and spirituality, believing consciousness might survive death. Her obsession with communicating with the dead-particularly Simon-reflects humanity's age-old desire to defeat death through belief in an afterlife. Yet her story also warns against excessive focus on mortality, as her fixation ultimately leads to her suicide.
Daniel represents the rational approach to mortality-becoming a doctor to fight death through science and reason. Yet his story reveals how even the most rational minds can be haunted by existential questions. His obsession with disproving the fortune teller suggests that denial of death's inevitability can be as destructive as obsession with it.
Varya's scientific research into longevity represents humanity's technological attempts to extend life. Her caloric restriction and isolated lifestyle reflect the sacrifices some would make for additional years. Yet her encounter with Luke forces her to question whether a longer life is meaningful without human connection and risk.
The novel's philosophical heart lies in Varya's realization near the end: "her parents gave their children the gift of uncertainty, the freedom of an unsure fate, while she and her siblings had sought to control time." This insight suggests that embracing uncertainty-rather than seeking absolute knowledge about death-might be the key to living fully. The fortune teller's predictions, rather than offering freedom, created a different kind of prison for each sibling.
Through Ruby's balanced approach to life-honoring her mother's magical legacy while pursuing medicine and maintaining family connections-Benjamin hints at a middle path. Ruby understands that "magic is just one way to keep people alive," suggesting that meaning comes not from defeating death but from how we connect with others while we're here.
