Her Fearful Symmetry

Audrey Niffenegger's spectacularly compelling second novel opens with a letter that alters the fate of every character. Julia and Valentina Poole are semi-normal American twenty-year-olds with seemingly little interest in college or finding jobs. Their attachment to one another is intense. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. From a London solicitor, the letter informs Valentina and Julia that their English aunt Elspeth Noblin, whom they never knew, has died of cancer, and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions to this inheritance: that they live in it for a year before they sell it; and that their parents may not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins. So were the estranged Elspeth and Edie, their mother.

The girls move to Elspeth's flat, which borders the vast and ornate Highgate Cemetery. Julia and Valentina come to know the residents of their building. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword puzzle setter suffering from crippling obsessive compulsive disorder; Marjike, Martin's devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth's elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt's neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including — perhaps — their aunt.

Author of one of the most beloved first novels in recent years, Niffenegger returns with an unnerving, unforgettable and enchanting ghost story, a novel about love and identity, secrets and sisterhood, and the tenacity of life — even after death.

"Niffenegger's ghost story is a stirring meditation on doubleness featuring twins Valentina and Julia; their mother, Edie and her twin, Elspeth; the two halves of Highgate Cemetery in London; the Western duality of body and soul. Audie Award — winner Bianca Amato gives a brilliant performance: Julia and Valentina's voices are differentiated just enough to tell them apart; Elspeth is Oxbridge refinement, but her twin has Americanized her accent. Amato's greatest challenge is Martin, a brilliant crossword setter whose neuroses prevent him from leaving his flat. Amato gives him a wit and allure that let the listener become as entranced with him as Julia does. This well-paced and lustrous audio will mesmerize and delight. A Scribner hardcover (Reviews, July 27). (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

From the bestselling author of The Time Traveler's Wife, comes a spectacularly compelling second novel set in and around Highgate Cemetery in London.

When Elspeth Noblin dies of cancer, she leavers her London apartment to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina. These two American girls never met their English aunt, only knew that their mother, too, was a twin, and Elspeth her sister. Julia and Valentina are semi-normal American teenagers—with seemingly little interest in college, finding jobs, or anything outside their cozy home in the suburbs of Chicago, and with an abnormally intense attachment to one another. They are twenty.

 

The girls move to Elspeths flat, which borders Highgate Cemetery in London. They come to know the buildings other residents. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword puzzle setter suffering from crippling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Marjike, Martins devoted but trapped wife, and Robert, Elspeths elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunts neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including—perhaps—their aunt, who cant seem to leave her old apartment and life behind.

 

Niffenegger weaves a captivating story in Her Fearful Symmetry about love and identity, about secrets and sisterhood, and about the tenacity of life—even after death.

Audrey Niffenegger is a visual artist and a guide at Highgate Cemetery. In addition to her bestselling novels, The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry, she is the author of two illustrated novels, The Three Incestuous Sisters and The Adventuress. She lives in Chicago.