I read The Time Traveler鈥檚 Wife by Audrey Niffenegger when it came out in 2003. I loved it 鈥� and also loved the film adaptation, starring Rachel McAdams as Clare and Eric Bana as time traveller Henry. Clare first meets Henry when she is 6 and he is 36; he doesn鈥檛 meet her, though, until he is 28, and she is 20.
The book is often wrongly billed as a romance, but I never saw it quite as that 鈥� it鈥檚 deeper, more complex, than 鈥渏ust鈥� a love story, leaving readers with all sorts of questions about predetermination and fate (Henry can return to the past, but he can鈥檛 change it, in Niffenegger鈥檚 version of time travel 鈥� a terrifying thought).
It has taken 23 years, but Niffenegger has written a sequel, Life Out of Order, which follows the story of Alba, Clare and Henry鈥檚 daughter. She is also a time traveller, one with slightly more control over her movements in time than her father, but this is a very different book from its predecessor.
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This time, we travel much further into the future (the 2090s), to a world ravaged and flooded by climate change. We see the rise of fascism and surveillance and artificial intelligence. Jumping between times, we watch humanity unravel as the (inevitable, unchangeable, terrible) future looms.
Happily, there is still romance. Alba has not one, but two great loves: Zach, from her present, a handsome, thoughtful activist; and Oliver, another time traveller, but from the future. There is also a lot of music 鈥� Niffenegger weaves Alba鈥檚 violin and Oliver鈥檚 piano throughout her text, as she meditates on the meaning of art at the end of the world.
I did have some quibbles with this book. First, I can鈥檛 stand the idea of 鈥渃ausal loops鈥�, in which characters have to do what they know they have to do in order to make the future they already know happen. How unbearably infuriating! And I鈥檓 not totally convinced that all the time travel totally stacks up (but then that鈥檚 probably par for the course with time-travel novels).
But I have to say that I absolutely roared through it 鈥� Niffenegger is a brilliant, elegant writer with such a knack for compelling storytelling. I would never want to time travel myself, but I can highly recommend you take the journey with Alba and her various lovers. Not least because I鈥檓 desperate to discuss all the details with someone鈥�
