First published 2019
The Gold children visit a psychic on Hester Street who tells each sibling exactly when they will die. Simon, Klara, Daniel, and Varya spend the next fifty years shaped by these prophecies. Simon heads to San Francisco in the 1980s, searching for love and freedom on the West Coast. Klara becomes a magician in Las Vegas, drawn to the thin line between illusion and reality. Daniel serves as a military doctor after 9/11, believing medicine might help him escape his predicted fate. Varya dedicates herself to longevity research, trying to unlock the secrets of immortality through science. Each sibling wrestles with whether the fortune teller's words will come true or whether knowing their futures has already sealed their destinies. Their choices ripple through decades, testing the bonds between them and forcing each to confront what it means to live fully when death feels predetermined.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, prophecy
Setting: San Francisco, Las Vegas
Period: 1980s, 2000s
368 pages · Hardcover · Meulenhoff
Content warnings: death, mental-illness