Audrey Niffenegger

My first encounter with Audrey Niffenegger’s work was her graphic novel or as she likes to call it “a novel in picture”: The Three Incestuous Sisters. She is an acclaimed author, visual artist and full time professor in the Interdisciplinary Book Arts MFA Program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts.

Her first novel was the mega-best-seller The Time Traveler's Wife, an exceptional novel due to it’s unconventional structure and gripping story. It tells the deeply engrossing yarn of Henry, a man who has a genetic abnormality that causes him to travel in time. He meets Claire as a young child and continues to time travel to her until they eventually meet in real time. He and their relationship are in constant flux. Although they have just met, they have known each other for 15 years and embark on an arduous marriage due to Henry’s small imperfection.

Niffenegger did a wonderful job by taking some complex ideas (time travel, marriage, love, children, friends, literary and artistic allusions, religion, death, childhood, loss, and the list goes on) and poetically weaving them together with amazing clarity into a Sci-Fi romance with an audacious twist. The novel goes beyond the typical love ballad to become a sweet story about living in the moment and enjoying people as they come and go through life. Niffenegger has created an impeccable balance between the down-to-earth-characters whose story is told so matter-of-factly and the enchanting surreal which results in a sexy, dazzling tale.

The Time Traveller’s Wife is a bittersweet novel that I could not put down. I’m not big on love stories as they usually tend towards nauseatingly sweet cliches but this story was written with such (oddly enough) realism and authentic feeling that it was able to walk the fine line between a tearjerker and an exceedingly original Sci Fi fantasy. It is hard to come up with an fresh love story without becoming corny but Niffenegger has resuscitated a classic genre by creating this stunning fairytale with a dark heart.

This dark core is also clearly visible (even more so) in her graphic novels. The Three Incestuous Sisters tells the strange and haunting story of three sisters who live in a lonely house by the sea and get up to all sorts of stuff. The Adventuress on the other hand, is a Gothic romance that follows the dreamlike journey of an alchemist’s daughter. Customary to her “novels in pictures” are the dramatically nuanced full-page prints which tell the story more than the minimalist yet spooky prose does. The sparse prose and haunting aquatint etchings create an otherworldly experience while telling grim and erotic tales.

New Line Cinema is planning to develop a film adaptation of The Time Traveler's Wife. The adaptation will be directed by Robert Schwentke and will star Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. Due for release in 2008.