Her Fearful Symmetry

Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger (Author)

Synopsis

dearest e, I told you I would let you know-so here it is-goodbye. I try to imagine what it would feel like if it was you-but it's impossible to conjure the world without you, even though we've been apart so long. I didn't leave you anything. You got to live my life. That's enough. Instead I'm experimenting-I've left the whole lot to the twins. I hope they'll enjoy it. Don't worry, it will be okay. Say goodbye to Jack for me. Love, despite everything, e Julia and Valentina Poole are normal American teenagers - normal, at least, for identical 'mirror' twins who have no interest in college or jobs or possibly anything outside their cozy suburban home. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn't know existed has died and left them her flat in an apartment block overlooking Highgate Cemetery in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin ... but have no idea that they've been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt's mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them, and even to their aunt herself, who never got over her estrangement from the twins' mother - and who can't even seem to quite leave her flat.... With Highgate Cemetery itself a character and echoes of Henry James and Charles Dickens, HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY is a delicious and deadly twenty-first-century ghost story about Niffenegger's familiar themes of love, loss and identity. It is certain to cement her standing as one of the most singular and remarkable novelists of our time.

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More Information

Format: Perfect Paperback
Pages: 400
Edition: 01
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Published: 01 Oct 2009

ISBN 10: 022408562X
ISBN 13: 9780224085625

Media Reviews
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
An engrossing read by someone who really knows how to keep a story rolling. . . . she makes us really care about her characters, but it's her storytelling chops that make Her Fearful Symmetry a winner.
-- NOW (Toronto)
[An] awesomely good read.
-- Chatelaine

Quirkily observed and rich on every level: plot, character, mood and theme. . . . She conjures a memorable world, and grants most of her characters happy endings, though perhaps not the ones they would have asked for.
-- The Globe and Mail

Entertaining. . . . The reader is pleasantly carried along by the author's ability to create credible characters and her instinctive narrative gifts. . . . The most powerful parts of Her Fearful Symmetry . . . deal not with paranormal events but with the ordinary pleasures and frustrations of life.
-- The New York Times

Niffenegger deftly creates and maintains suspense. . . . Niffenegger has created a startling cast of characters whose eccentricities make them both more memorable and more believable.
-- The Gazette

A modern Victorian novel revolving around a London cemetery, ghostly hauntings and a well-kept secret. . . . A bewitching modern-gothic tale that is at once unsettling and intriguing.
-- Chicago Sun-Times

Talk about time travel: The novel blends the history of London's famed Highgate Cemetery, the remarkable phenomena of mirror-image twins and the question of life after death into a ghost story that feels as if it could have been written a century ago.
-- National Post

Odd and disturbing but intensely mesmerizing and memorable. . . . Niffenegger spins such a riveting story -- just like she did in The Time Traveler's Wife -- that suspending disbelief is a pleasure. . . . Niffenegger's writing is bewitching. . . . Niffenegger delivers with great skill a chilling and haunting story.
-- The Miami Herald

Vivid prose. . . . Perverse f
Author Bio
Audrey Niffenegger is a visual artist and writer who lives mostly in Chicago and occasionally in London. She has published six books, including the novels The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry. She helped to found the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. Her art has been exhibited by Printworks Gallery in Chicago since 1986. She is a Professor in the Fiction Department of Columbia College. Her recent projects include a ballet, Raven Girl, in collaboration with Wayne McGregor for the Royal Opera House Ballet.