Book Review: Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

At first glance, Audrey Niffenegger's second novel seems to be a complete departure from her debut, The Time Traveler's Wife. It's mostly set in London and it follows a whole host of characters, none of whom, except for the ghost, have any supernatural powers. However, both novels ultimately struggle with the same two questions: 1) How final is death? and 2) How suffocating is life for those who won't leave the ones they love even if maybe they should?

Her Fearful Symmetry tells the story of two sets of identical twins and the people who inhabit their world. The first set, Edie and Elspeth, were born in raised in London. Edie moved to the U.S. with her American husband, Jack. Elspeth stayed in London where she eventually finds a passionate companion in Robert, a younger man who is working on his thesis on the history of Highgate Cemetery. When the novel begins, the twins haven't spoken in twenty years. Oh, and Elspeth dies.

The second set of twins, Julia and Valentina, are the daughters of Edie and Jack. Although Elspeth has never met them, she leaves them her entire estate, with the caveat that they must come and live in her flat for one year before they can decide whether they'd like to sell it. Julia and Valentina are childlike, tow-headed fairies, flitting from one idea to the next, at Julia's direction. They look identical on the outside, but they are actually mirror images of one another. Valentina's insides are reversed.

As in her first novel, Niffenegger is a master story teller, taking her time to set the scene and giving the reader plenty of quirky and desperate characters to meet. There's Martin, the upstairs neighbor with such a bad case of OCD that he cannot leave his flat and whose hands are perpetually raw from cleaning (and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning) with bleach. There's Jessica, the matron of Highgate, who frets over Robert after Elspeth dies. There's Robert, so grief-stricken that he is terrified when he discovers that the newly-arrived Julia and Valentina are younger versions of Elspeth. And there are the young twins, Julia, the domineering one, and Valentina, who'll do whatever Julia wants while she secretly dreams of getting away from her.

The beautiful writing kept me interested, even when none of the main characters are particularly likeable and the ultimate point of the novel was very slow to reveal itself. But when it did, it was so far-fetched that I lost interest--even more far-fetched than a man who cannot control when and where he falls through cracks in time, if that tells you anything. At the end of the novel, the big family secret that kept Edie and Elspeth apart for two decades is also revealed. It's a good one, but not everybody gets to know it and the ones who do ultimately shrug it off without confronting the secret keepers.

Overall, Her Fearful Symmetry is a very disappointing read from a writer of Niffenegger's obvious skill. Here's hoping her third (The Chinchilla Girl in Exile about a little girl covered in hair who doesn't want to be home schooled any longer) will be better.