Adam Leith Gollner - The book of immortality : the science, belief, and magic behind living forever

What have we not done to live forever? Adam Leith Gollner, the critically acclaimed author of The Fruit Hunters, weaves together religion, science, and mythology in a gripping exploration of the most universal of human obsessions: immortality.

Raised without religion, Adam Leith Gollner was struck by mankinds tireless efforts to cheat aging and death. In a narrative that pivots between profundity and hilarity, he brings us into the world of those whose lives are shaped by a belief in immortality. From a Jesuit priest on his deathbed to antiaging researchers at Harvard, Gollner sorting truth from absurditycanvasses religion and science for insight, along with an array of cults, myths, and fringe figures.

He journeys to David Copperfields archipelago in the Bahamas, where the magician claims to have found a liquid that reverses genes. He explores a cryonics facility, attends a costume party set in the year 2068 with a group of radical life-extensionists, and soaks in the transformative mineral waters at the Esalen Institute. Looking to history, Gollner visits St. Augustine, Florida, where Ponce de Len is thought to have sought the Fountain of Youth.

Combining immersive reporting, rigorous research, and lyrical prose, Gollner charts the rise of longevity science from its alchemical beginnings to modern-day genetic interventions. He delves into the symbolic representation of eternal life and its connection to water. Interlaced throughout is a compelling meditation on the nature of belief, showing how every story we tell about immortality is a story about the meaning of death.

Part journalist, part detective, part scientist. (New York Post). Adam Leith Gollner has written a rollicking and revelatory examination of our age-old notion of living forever.

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M Y HEARTFELT THANKS to the many people who helped this book become real, especially Mark Raymond Collins, Martha Morano, Sharry Flett, Warren Auld, Esther Rochon, Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, Himo Martin, Cheskie Lebowitz, Jonathan Freedman, Leslie Feist, Nicole Pierpont, Sophie Leddick, Taras Grescoe, Jocelyn Zuckerman, Bill Sertl, Peter Wrth, Tyler Graham, Sarah Amelar, Korbett Mathews, Charles Levin, Ian Jackson, David Tobias, and Janice Kerfoot. Thank you to the St. Augustine Historical Society, the Rene Goupil House, the Cryonics Institute, the Esalen Institute, the Internet, and the libraries of the world. Thank you to the QWF, Lori Schubert, the Canada Council, the Public Lending Right Program, and Access Copyright. To Warren and the Hedgpeth family: I still hope to write about the Society for the Prevention of Progress one day. Much thanks to John, Vanessa, Dexter, and all at the Long Haul. Thank you to Demetra and the Zoubris gang for putting up with me (aka Larry). Efharisto George and Jimmy Vitoroullis. Oncle Jax Andison: Its been a service pleasuring you.

For the conversations and insights: Melanie Sifton, Donald Antrim, Lorin Stein, Jenna Wright, Clay Weiner, Tracy Martin, Billy Mavreas, Doctor Oz, Michelle Sterling, Ithamar Silver, Daniel K. Seligman, Jessica Wee, Miguel Syjuco, Edith Werbel, Peter Meehan, Roger Tellier-Craig, Sabrina Ratt, Danny, Jesse, Nat, Tim, Cathy, and John Riviere, the Sanchez clanCarlos and Anny, Jason and Elena, Louise and Joe, Suroosh Alvi, Tim Hecker, Brett Stabler, Yaniya Lee, Matt Brown, Robbie Dillon, Fred Morin, Cassady Sniatowsky, Michael Guru Felber, Elliot Jacobson, Arjun Basu, Philippe Tremblay-Berberi, Bartek Komorowski, Tim Fletcher, Theo Diamantis, Nathan Curry, Zoe Mowat, Michelle Marek, Anthony Kinik, Thea Metcalfe, Robin Simpson, Anna Phelan, Sarah Louise Musgrave, Hart Snider, Aisling Chin-Yee, Mark Slutsky, Susannah Heath-Eaves, Mila Aung-Thwin, Bob Moore, Yung Chang, Allan Moyle, and Kurt Ossenfort.

The Tessler Agency played a key role in the story of how this book became a book. Im thrilled to now be working with Tracy Bohan of the Wylie Agency.

My eternal gratitude to everyone at Scribner, especially Nan Graham, Susan Moldow, Kelsey Smith, Leah Sikora, and Paul Whitlatch. Im indebted to Steve Boldt for his excellent copyediting work, and to Dan Cuddy and the entire production team. My editor and copilot, Alexis Gargagliano, encouraged me to go deeper and never wavered in her faith, patience, and understanding. Thank you, Alexis, for guiding me, for collaborating with me, for being so generous and so brilliant.

Much thanks to the fantastic team at Doubleday/Random House Canada: Lynn Henry, Amy Black, Kristin Cochrane, Christopher Frey, and Adria Iwasutiak.

Loving thanks to Annie Briard, David Gawley, Kicsi Nni, Kati Nni, Antal, Ricsi, Zsuzsi, Paul, Peter, Brian, Mandy, Ian, Sheelagh, Willie, Sam, and Laura.

Thank you to the incomparable Liane Balaban for the wisdom, poetry, and inspiration: Toujours nous irons plus loin sans avancer jamais.

To Natasha Li Pickowicz, thank you for being in the life force with me. You know more than anyone what this entailed.

My deepest thanks to my familymy brothers, Miska and Julian, my father, Andrs, and my mother, Linda.

ALSO BY ADAM LEITH GOLLNER

The Fruit Hunters:

A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession

JASON SANCHEZ

Adam Leith Gollner is the author of The Fruit Hunters. The former editor of Vice magazine, he has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the Globe and Mail, and Lucky Peach . He lives in Montreal.

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Can I learn to suffer

Without saying something ironic or funny

On suffering? I never suspected the way of truth

Was a way of silence

W. H. Auden, The Sea and the Mirror

We have to die, we have to leave life presently. Injustice and greed would be the real thing if we lived for ever. As it is, we must hold to other things, because Death is coming. I love deathnot morbidly, but because He explains.... Behind the coffins and the skeletons that stay the vulgar mind lies something so immense that all that is great in us responds to it.

E. M. Forster, Howards End

E VERYONE IN the family called her Auntie Tiny. Shed always been minusculeof stature elegantly wee, as our Hungarian relatives put it. She spoke in a helium-pitched, young-girl voice, even when discussing serious matters. We kids considered her one of us. She was an emissary from the grown-up realms, a benevolent Old World pixie who kept shrinking into her dotage. We worried shed get smaller and smaller, so teensy shed eventually vanish.

I first heard Auntie Tinys real name when the funeral notice appeared:

With deep sorrow, but in acquiescence to Divine will, we inform those who knew and loved Ilona Kver Gllner that, in the 96th year of her life, she returned home to her Lord and Saviour.

Childless and widowed, our childlike Auntie Tiny had been closer to a grandmother than a great-aunt. My fathers mother died when I was very young. And the last time I tried to visit my maternal grandmother, a British antiquarian with hoarding tendencies, she asked me not to come. Im in an absolute muddle, she sighed, engulfed by four stories of belongings.