Another brilliant, original and moving novel from the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife.

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 amazing flat in a building by Highgate Cemetery in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin … but they have no idea that they’ve been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the OCD-suffering 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 mother of the girls — her own twin — and who can’t even seem to quite leave her flat….


From the Hardcover edition.

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NOMINEE 2011 - International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

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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 fun. . . . The occult-loving Victorians would have been captivated. Her Fearful Symmetry begins slowly, but it ends with a shiver."
— Toronto Star

"Filled with originality and beauty, along with a touch of creepiness. . . . Niffenegger has managed it again, producing another book that is immensely readable, strikingly original and — forgive the pun — simply haunting. It’s a delightful read and well crafted."
— The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo)

"Stylish, easy to read and . . . a dark delicious plot which has several neat twists. . . . Clever in its deviousness."
— The Scotsman

"Niffenegger creates . . . marvelous scenes of muted sadness and smothered affection. . . . A disorienting shift into the dark logic of fairy tales. But keep the children away and dust off the Ouija board; you’re about to make contact with something deliciously creepy."
— The Washington Post


From the Hardcover edition.

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Visit Audrey Niffenegger's website.

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Audrey Niffenegger was born in 1963 in the idyllic hamlet of South Haven, Michigan. Her family moved to Evanston, Illinois when she was little; she has lived in or near Chicago for most of her life.

She began making prints in 1978 under the tutelage of William Wimmer. Miss Niffenegger trained as a visual artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and received her MFA from Northwestern University's Department of Art Theory and Practice in 1991. She has exhibited her artist's books, prints, paintings, drawings and comics at Printworks Gallery in Chicago since 1987.

Her first books were printed and bound by hand in editions of ten. Two of these have since been commercially published by Harry N. Abrams: The Adventuress and The Three Incestuous Sisters.

In 1997 Miss Niffenegger had an idea for a book about a time traveler and his wife. She originally imagined making it as a graphic novel, but eventually realized that it is very difficult to represent sudden time shifts with still images. She began to work on the project as a novel, and published The Time Traveler's Wife in 2003 with the independent publisher MacAdam/Cage. It was an international best seller, and has been made into a movie.

In 1994 a group of book artists, papermakers and designers came together to found a new book arts center, the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. Miss Niffenegger was part of this group and taught book arts for many years as a professor in Columbia College's MFA program in Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts. She still teaches at Columbia College; currently she is teaching writing courses that specialize in text-image relationships. Miss Niffenegger has also taught for the Newberry Library, Penland School of Craft and other institutions of higher learning.

Miss Niffenegger is a founding member of the writing collective Text 3 (T3). Recent T3 endeavors include the litmag little Bang and some rather amusing dinner parties.

Miss Niffenegger's second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, was published in 2009 by Scribner (USA), Jonathan Cape (UK) and many other fine publishers around the world.  She recently made a serialized graphic novel for the London Guardian, The Night Bookmobile, which will be published in book form in 2010. Other current projects include an art exhibit at Printworks Gallery in September, 2010, and a third novel, The Chinchilla Girl in Exile.


From the Hardcover edition.

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