Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

I was a bit dubious when a friend gave me a copy of Audrey Niffenegger's new novel, Her Fearful Symmetry. After all, I rarely enjoy any science fiction, whether in a book or on film. The same goes for fantasy and, as I often put it, anything that's not possible. So, Niffenegger surprised me with her eerily suspenseful, quietly romantic, simple but elegant prose, and frankly implausible story -- implausible unless you believe in ghosts and modern-day resurrections, that is.

The book is the tale of Edie and Elspeth, identical twin sisters, and the identical twin sisters to whom one of them gave birth, Valentina and Julia. The novel is set mostly in London in a a two- or three-flat abutting the aging Highgate Cemetery, where the likes of Karl Marx, Christina Rossetti and the parents of Charles Dickens are buried. ... not to mention Elspeth, who dies in the first chapter. Or does she?

The cemetery has been the setting of other novels and is the place where one of Count Dracula's victims is buried in Bram Stoker's classic book. Niffenegger, who lives in Chicago and who wrote the bestseller The Time Traveler's Wife, has been a tour guide a the cemetery.

The novel also weaves in a likable researcher who's a hoarder with an obsessive compulsive disorder, a cemetery guide who's a harmless stalker, romance and sisterly love even to the point of obsession, and more than a couple ghosts who amazingly come across as highly plausible characters.

Some of the characters in Her Fearful Symmetry are, shall we say, more than a tad flawed. So don't read this novel with the expectation of finding a hero, a saint or even a normal person for that matter.

My only complaint with the book is the ending. I'm OK with Hollywood endings. I'm also fine with more realistic, even tragic endings. But like one of Niffenegger's ghosts, I hate to be left out of the loop, in the dark, with no clue as to what is happening. And that's exactly how her ending left me. I'd love to read your comments on what you think happened to Robert in the end if you've read the book.