Daily Books - The Immortalists--by Chloe Benjamin | Conversation Starters

Conversation Starters for Chloe Benjamins The Immortalists By dailyBooks Please Note: This is an unofficial conversation starters guide. If you have not yet read the original work or would like to read it again, get the book here. Copyright 2017 by dailyBooks. All Rights Reserved. First Published in the United States of America 2017 Disclaimer / Terms of Use: Product names, logos, brands, and other trademarks featured or referred to within this publication are the property of their respective trademark holders and are not affiliated with dailyBooks. The publisher and author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of these contents and disclaim all warranties such as warranties of fitness for a particular purpose.

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The characters and their world come alive through the words on the pages, yet the characters and its world still live on. Questions herein are designed to bring us beneath the surface of the page and invite us into the world that lives on. These questions can be used to:

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Through the eyes of four siblings making their way through the late 1960s and beyond, readers are treated with what one may do if they knew the exact day they would die. One of the main themes of The Immortalists is the vast mystery of death and the unknown and most of all, how one copes with the thought of death. Most people in this life have no idea when they will die. They go through life the best they can and hope they will have a meaningful and happy life. Some, however, will do whatever is possible to prolong their youth through crazy diets and many surgical procedures. If a person was told the exact day they would die, how would they spend the rest of their remaining time? Would they try to live life to the fullest and travel the world? Would they spend as much time with friends and families to make memories that last past their expiration date? Or would they try to do everything they could to stop their death? Each of the four siblings had a different outlook when they were told when they would die.

None of them believed the mysterious gypsy woman at first, but after some thought they worried that if they tried to fight against the death date, their actions would only make the death come true. Simon and Klara escaped to the West Coast as soon as Simon turned 18 during the 1980s. After they parted ways, Simon found love in the life of a dancer in San Francisco amongst his homosexual friends. However, soon he hears his friends and lovers dying one by one through the love disease, AIDS. Soon Simon is also taken by the disease, before it even has a name. Meanwhile, Klara finds her own bit of magic in Las Vegas, as she copes with her younger brothers death, in the 90s as an escape dare devil and magician on the stage.

She performs almost impossible feats, such as hanging on a rope with her teeth, and stares death in the face to the fascination and horror of the audience. Her enthusiasm for death-defying feats soon meets with her demise, again on the date predicted. The eldest son, Daniel, works hard on finding security within becoming an army doctor post the September 11th tragedy and learn of the truth of what had happened to his younger siblings. He finds a wife, buys a home and builds the most stabile life he possibly can during the early 2000s. But his search for finding out what had happened to Simon and Klara also spells out his death. Lastly, we are then treated to how Varya chooses to abandon all of lifes coping mechanisms, such as sex and food, and instead becomes a researcher to study longevity using monkeys as test subjects.

She does everything she can to right her siblings wrongs and does what she thinks will be best for a longer life. Chloe Benjamin works hard on showing how life may have felt like if one was told when they would die. Simon embraced his homosexuality, Klara chose to play with magic, Simon tried to hide and Varya looked to find the secret to longevity. However, despite each siblings way of coping, each die at precisely the date they were told to by the gypsy woman back when they were kids in New York City. Did their lifestyles hasten their deaths? Or if they had chosen to live differently, could they have avoided it? Another theme that intertwines with the novel is the theme of family. The four Gold kids have a deep connection with each other that is seen throughout the book.

Klara helped Simon find the courage to be himself during a time when homosexuality was to be never spoken about. However, once he passed away, she threw herself into becoming a magician to escape her heartache of losing one of her best friends. When Klara died, Daniel left his comfortable stability and made it his mission to find out what happened to his younger siblings. The search for the truth put him in his own danger and brings about his death. Varya reels from the loss of her siblings and becomes extra determined to find a way to bring about longer life as well as to never make the mistakes she felt her brothers and sisters made.

With a dream of becoming a professional writer, Benjamin worked on receiving her Masters of Fine Arts through University of Wisconsin. On top of Chloes writing as well as her upcoming book tour for The Immortalists, Benjamin currently works at the non-profit organization ALS Worldwide where she works with those who have been diagnosed with the Lou Gehrigs disease and their families. Through this occupation, she is learning more about medicine and science as well as corresponding worldwide with patients. Her debut novel, The Anatomy of Dreams, follows the story of a young Sylvie Patterson and her classmate, Gabe, as they help an eccentric professor with his lucid dreaming research. The Anatomy of Dreams, published through Simon and Shuster in September 2014, soon became the recipient of the 2014