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Lakewood Book Club: The Immortalists (Hosted on Zoom)
August 15, 2023 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
FreeJoin us for the Lakewood Book Club, where we read and discuss books covering topics related to death, loss, and grief, as well as what it means to live in the presence of death and dying. This quarterly series will feature a new book with a different topic of discussion.
Registration is required – spaces are limited.
You will need to purchase your own copies of the books (or audio books) and read through them ahead of the event. We encourage shopping locally and buying your books through our neighbors at Magers and Quinn or other local booksellers, or finding the book through your local library.
Depending on the number of attendees, we will either have a large group discussion or break out into smaller groups. Discussion questions and topics will be provided to spark conversation, but we encourage you to bring your own questions as well!
About This Month’s Book
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes. Their prophecies inform their next five decades. A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.
About Your Host
Emily Stacken is a death doula and hospice vigil volunteer. She is one of the organizers of the Radical Death Series, a four-part series of conversations aimed to interrogate the phrase “good death” while prioritizing issues of racial equity, collective grief, and what it means to embrace death as inseparable from life. She attended United Theological Seminary and received a Masters of Arts in Leadership. Her final capstone, Radicalizing Death: A Death Positive Movement for Social Change, explores Ernest Becker’s concepts in The Denial of Death, and how this research informs the current Death Positive movement.
Zoom
Lakewood Heritage Foundation
This event is free however we invite you to make a donation to the Lakewood Heritage Foundation. Donations to the Lakewood Heritage Foundation support educational programming and the preservation and restoration of Lakewood’s landscape, art, architecture and public spaces—for the benefit of all.
You can donate when you purchase your ticket, or on the Lakewood Heritage Foundation page.
Questions?
Call the Lakewood events line at 612-540-5165 or email to events@lakewoodcemetery.org