Chloe Benjamin Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Chloe Benjamin is an American author that hails from San Francisco, California. She is a graduate of Vassar College and also went on to receive an M.F.A. in creative fiction from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

In her spare time, Benjamin also teaches workshops on everything that has to do with the business of publishing. The classes take into account everything from writing to finding a literary agent. She currently lives with her husband in Madison in Wisconsin.

Her first novel is titled The Anatomy of Dreams and was published in 2014. The book was well received and won a number of awards and prizes. It was published by Atria via Simon & Schuster. It was long listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize in 2014 and received the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award. It was also long listed for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize in 2014.

Her second novel is titled The Immortalists and is being published by Putnam of Penguin Random House in 2018. It will have a more expansive plan for going to market, being planned to be published internationally and the television and film rights have already been sold to the Jackal Group.

The Anatomy of Dreams is the first book written and published by Benjamin. The main character is named Sylvie Patterson and the book takes place in 1998. She is a student that attends a boarding school in northern California. She is very into books and her grades and is intelligent and focused on school, so when she begins to have feelings for a classmate, it’s all very unexpected.

Sylvie begins to fall in love with Gabe, who is spirited but also elusive. The headmaster of the school is named Dr. Adrian Keller, and he is a medical researcher and also quite a charismatic character. He has put his entire career on the subject of lucid dreaming and its therapeutic potential. He teaches his patients to actually wake up during sleep and become conscious, all with the purpose of helping them to lessen stress and heal from trauma.

Sylvie and Gabe enter into a relationship and are fascinated by Keller and his work. They even work with him in his labs doing these lucid dreaming experiments, which apparently are so secretive that Sylvie and Gabe cannot tell anyone about them. That in and of itself is kind of suspicious, but enraptured students Sylvie and Gabe look up to Doctor Adrian Keller so much that they are happy to keep it a secret and not tell anyone about the strange experiments they are doing in the name of science for fear of disrupting the work they are doing by the word getting out among the general populace– or to anyone really, for that matter.

Over six years, they become obsessed with it and follow him where he goes, from Eureka in California to the coast of New England. So when an opportunity brings all three of them to the Midwest, their relationship with their mysterious neighbors starts to get a little complicated, and the two also begin to wonder about the nature of Keller’s research. Things are not as simple as they were when they first started out, fascinated with theories, studies, and applications.

Sylvie herself begins to wonder about what actions are being taken in the name of progress. But are her suspicions justified or is she simply experiencing an inexplicable wave of paranoia?

While they were doing all of these experiments involving lucid dreaming, Sylvie would never suspect herself as a victim of the process. Still, there are certain things that she really can’t put her finger on that seem kind of strange. The lapses in time that go throughout the book cannot be trusted as the reader is kept in suspense. Sylvie herself is starting to exhibit some strange signs and suspects that maybe her mind knows more than it’s letting her consciousness in on.

Sylvie begins to navigate what is going on and start wondering who she can trust. While you would think that the doctor is hiding dark secrets– and hey may be– the true surprise is what Sylvie begins to do. This novel is an interesting dive into a story that focuses on the nature of trust and the power of our dreams.

Benjamin weaves in a lot of real life statistics and information into this story so that the reader learns more and also has that authenticity in the story. When the true potential of the mind is unleashed, then perhaps anything is possible. Then again, maybe humans sleep the way that they do for a reason, and messing with or disrupting that is not such a wise idea.

The Immortalists is Benjamin’s second book published in 2018. The main character in this book is called Simon, but there are four other main characters as well. They are the Gold Siblings. The book is set in 1969.

In the lower East Side of New York City, there is talk of the arrival of a woman who has mystical powers. She is said to be a traveling psychic that can tell any person the day that they will die. The Gold children go and have their fortunes read, which will go on to influence and inform them in the following fifty years.

He is a kid that is searching for love in San Francisco in the eighties. Klara turns her passion for fantasy into a reality as the once dreamy young girl grows up to be a magician doing shows in Vegas. Daniel was the oldest son and he became an army doctor in the years that followed the 9/11 attacks in New York City. He works to make a difference in what is an existential reaction to the event, trying to control fate.

Varya was always book smart and eventually goes into researching longevity. Hers is one of the more interesting paths as she goes dangerously close to walking the line of science into the realms of immortality. This is a book that is both engrossing and full of depth, The Immortalists takes the reader to the edge of reality and illusion in a fantastic tale that involves destiny, choice, and more.