Fiction Addict

Genre: Romance, Drama

Publisher: Scribner

Publication Date: September 29th, 2009

Lori Twichell’s review:

“Elspeth died while Robert was standing in front of a vending machine watching tea shoot into a small paper cup.”

Thus begins Audrey Niffenegger’s first novel since The Time Traveler’s Wife.  Now let me start out this review by saying that I am a first level geek for Niffenegger’s work.  I fell in love with The Time Traveler’s Wife and when I discovered that this book was coming out, I was over the moon. When the book finally arrived in the mail, I tore into the package like Christmas. I even paraded it around the house saying “Look! See what Mommy got in the mail! Isn’t it awesome?!” (My son, by the way, was nonplussed with the big book that had no pictures.)

Her Fearful Symmetry combines a ghost story with romance, sibling rivalry and woven throughout, death. The setting of the book is quite literally in the backyard of the famous Highgate Cemetery in London and as you may have noticed in the first sentence of this review, the main character of the book dies. That’s how the book starts. It’s not really your typical ghost story or romance. But that’s okay. Niffenegger’s normal is always anything but typical.

The main character in this book, as I mentioned, is Elspeth. She’s the dearly departed without really having departed. For some reason, Elspeth hasn’t really gone away. So when her mirror twin nieces arrive from America to take over her apartment, things get a little awkward. We follow her journey as she spends her days and nights trying to figure out ways to communicate with the girls. She also spends a lot of time trying to get out of the apartment and see Robert, her lover who lives in the flat below the girls. As Elspeth struggles with her lingering presence and lack of purpose, she notices something odd. Her niece, Valentina, has begun to have feelings for Robert. This puts Elspeth in an even more awkward position than just sleeping in a drawer. She doesn’t know what to do. Should she stop it? Encourage it? Yes. I know. Some moments of the plot do feel a little daytime soapy when you repeat them out loud.

Thankfully Niffenegger’s mastery of character development and description makes things feel far less sudsy than your average soap. She can pull off the most stunning descriptions of characters, events, and locations with the simplest turns of phrase. She can draw you in to the oddest set of storylines and characters with just a few sentences. Even as you’re thinking, “This isn’t really my style” you will come across something that takes your breath away and requires that you read it multiple times to really capture the depth of it. Her writing remains brilliant, beautiful, and stunning.

Now to be fair, the plot wasn’t something that I would normally enjoy and the ending felt like it came far too late in the story. Everything could have really been wrapped much sooner than it did. And in all honesty, I scratched my head at the abrupt climax of several major storylines. But still, it’s Audrey Niffenegger. She writes so beautifully and so brilliantly that even if you get to the end and ask “What?” you still had an amazing journey along the way.

Marianne Peters’ review:

Grief. Ghosts. Two sets of twins. Lovers separated by death and distance. Family secrets. And London’s Highgate Cemetery, an ancient burial ground full of storied occupants. Who can resist a novel with all these compelling elements?

Her Fearful Symmetry begins with Elspeth Noblin’s death and her adventures afterward as she haunts her London flat.  In her will, Elspeth mysteriously leaves her flat to her estranged twin sister’s twenty-year-old twin daughters. Her nieces, Julia and Valentina, share a creepily intense sibling bond. They move into Elspeth’s former home, located in a building which borders famous Highgate cemetery. Julia forms a friendship with upstairs neighbor Martin, a gentle, brilliant, but hopelessly obsessive-compulsive man who refuses to leave his flat. The twins also meet Robert, Elspeth’s grief-stricken former lover who is writing a history of Highgate cemetery and working as a volunteer guide there. When Robert and Valentina form a romantic bond, relationships between the living and the dead begin to unravel.

Highgate itself becomes a character in the novel. Its history, architecture, inhabitants, and daily rituals create an atmosphere of decay, a reminder of the inevitable. Descriptions of the cemetery are the most enjoyable part of the novel, along with Niffenegger’s rendering of ghost-life. Elspeth grows in ghostliness as she attempts to communicate with the twins and with Robert, her erstwhile lover. Niffenegger imagines Elspeth evolving from a misty disembodiment to a visible, powerful presence, and watching her discover her strength and begin to insert herself into the twins’ lives makes for compelling storytelling. Nothing good can come of it.

Like her previous novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger renders a fantastical situation plausible with imaginative detail – for instance, what does it feel like to pull a soul from a body? Unlike her previous novel, her characters did not venture far from type, which made the outcome predictable.  Predictable, but still eerie fun, especially with a setting such as Highgate cemetery, full of ghosts and memories.

Don’t miss our interview with Audrey Niffenegger.