The most recent figures from the World Bank show the average life expectancy for Americans is nearly 79 years old. And while that’s a few years less than some other countries, it's still around the highest point it has ever been in US history. But let’s say you knew exactly how long you’ll live — down to the very day. Would it change the way you lived your life?
That compelling question sets the base of an intriguing new novel by Wisconsin writer Chloe Benjamin. The Immortalists traces the life stories of four siblings who visited a fortune teller when they were young. The woman purported to know the day in which they would die.
"They all have their secrets and their peculiarities, and it was really important to me to make sure that each of their orientations toward the prophecy in each of their lives was different," notes Benjamin. "I didn't want the reader to have this Groundhog Day experience."
With four different siblings come different settings — from late 1960s New York, San Francisco and the dawn of the AIDS crisis, the realms of magic, and primate research.
Benjamin says that in-depth research was crucial to delivering a quality and believable story. "I really feel that if I'm going to write about something that I didn't live through, I want to do it with as much integrity as possible, and for me research and empathy are the most important tools for that."
Although she isn't necessarily fixated on death, Benjamin says she certainly had fears about loss growing up. And, a large part of her experiences, she says, are based on balancing the concepts of knowledge and uncertainty.
"I'm somebody who really craves knowledge as a way to cope with uncertainly, but I'm also aware the knowledge can...be liberating but it can also be really limiting," Benjamin explains. "So putting that question in the content of mortality (was really the seed for me)."
Thinking about death is a difficult prospect for many of us; but knowing when it will happen complicates things. When asked how readers should view this concept, Benjamin says that she honestly doesn't know.
"I hope that the book offers a gray area in which readers can make their own decisions...I feel that I couldn't have written it with this sort of curiosity or openness that I did if I had a really firm idea," she says.
Editor's Note: This interview originally aired Jan. 16, 2018.
