From the Bookshelves

Robert took off his round wire-rimmed glasses and his shoes. He climbed into the bed, careful not to disturb Elspeth, and folded himself around her. For weeks she had burned with fever, but now her temperature was almost normal. He felt his skin warm slightly where it touched hers. She had passed into the realm of inanimate objects and was losing her own heat. Robert pressed his face into the back of Elspeth's neck and breathed deeply.

Elspeth watched him from the ceiling. How familiar he was to her, and how strange he seemed. She saw, but could not feel, his long hands pressed into her waist--everything about him was elongated, his face all jaw and large upper lip; he had a slightly beakish nose and deep-set eyes; his brown hair spilled over her pillow. His skin was pallorous from being too long in the hospital light. He looked so desolate, thin and enormous, spooned around her tiny slack body; Elspeth thought of a photograph she had seen long ago in National Geographic, a mother clutching a child dead from starvation. Robert's white shirt was creased; there were holes in the big toes of his socks. All regrets and guilts and longings of her life came over her. No, she thought. I won't go. But she was already gone, and in a moment she was elsewhere, scattered nothingness.

-Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger

The newest novel from Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife, is page after page of beautiful writing, that weaves a beautifully haunting tale. It's like a photograph that mysterious comes out altered--an exposure in the roll of film, some strange accident--that is all the more stunning in its strangeness. It has a dry, sly humor that is at times light and teasing, yet (as that sort of humor so often can) has a macabre edge that can make you wonder just what it is they're holding back. Set for the most part in London, next to the Victorian marvel, Highgate Cemetery, it has a gothic element without being drab and dour (a skill that it seems only the British have). It reminds me of some of my favorite British things, like taking tea . . . and the odd ability Brits have for answering your question and telling you absolutely nothing at the same time.

The above excerpt is from the beginning, because the story is too important in its chronology to pluck something out of the middle. It's difficult to read at times, as the passage shows, but it's truly a splendid read. In a further bid to try to entice any readers to give it a go . . . I love Martin, and I hope you do, too.

Oh, and as a voracious reader, I pride myself on deductive reasoning. But I didn't see it coming. At all.