Varya Gold

Varya is the oldest of the Gold Children, she is 13 years old when the siblings go to the fortune teller. The fortune teller says that she will die at age 88. She grows up to be a microbiologist specializing in increasing life longevity. The fact that she outlives all of her siblings almost certainly informs her choice of career, as she suffers from survivor's guilt. In the first section of the novel, when Varya is young, she is an intelligent but hyper-vigilant child. This anxiety balloons into a severe case of obsessive compulsive disorder later in life (which is expanded upon in detail in the last section of the novel). She suffers from panic attacks, often when something reminds her of her siblings.

Varya works at the Drake Institute for Research on Aging where she conducts experiments on rhesus monkeys to determine if calorie-restriction might be a pathway...