Review: Eternal Life

Rachel is a typical modern woman in many ways: her children sometimes drive her crazy, she dotes on her grandchildren, and she has some big decisions to make about the family business. But there is one thing that makes Rachel very unique--she can't die. Two thousand years ago, she made an incredible bargain to save the life of her son. He would live and become a crucial figure in Jewish history, but she would be unable to die. All these years later, she has lived many lives all over the world. She has fallen in love, she has had children and careers, and then she leaves them all behind before her descendants can see that she outlives them. Her granddaughter Hannah is a scientist with a grant to try to prevent death and Rachel worries that she will figure out the truth about her grandmother. Is it finally time for Rachel to die? Is it even possible?

The story itself is a really engaging one. We see Rachel in the present as she tries to make good decisions, realizing that the decisions that make her a good mother are not always the ones that will keep her safe and happy. Horn also takes us into Rachel's past at several different points, but we spend the most time at the beginning with the son whose life she saved. We also meet Elazar, the boy's father, who made a similar sacrifice and follows Rachel through time. They spend some lives together, taking solace in the face that one other person knows what it is like to be immortal. In others, Rachel runs as far away as possible from the man who knows too much about her and has hurt her too many times. It is the highest of compliments that I would have followed Rachel through all of her lives, because Horn gives her characters so much of the nuance and contradiction that makes them seem to come alive right on the page.

Dara Horn writes fascinating novels that grapple with complex questions of faith and morality. In Eternal Life, the question at hand is what it means for us to be human. Would immortality render us more human as we live through life after life of mistakes and joys or would the ability to have another chance make us something other than human? If there is no end, do the moments that make life meaningful become more precious or do they mean nothing at all?

Also by Dara Horn: A Guide for the Perplexed

Eternal Life
By Dara Horn
W.W. Norton Company January 2018
256 pages
From the library