The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler's Wife (ISBN 015602943X) is a novel by Audrey Niffenegger. It is an untraditional love story that centers around a man with a strange genetic disorder that allows him to travel through time and his wife, an artist, who has to cope with his constant absence.

Related Topics:
Audrey Niffenegger - Genetic disorder

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The rights to the book were bought by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. It is rumored that Pitt will star in the adapted film version of the story, which will be released in 2006. Gus Van Sant has been confirmed as director.

Related Topics:
Brad Pitt - Jennifer Aniston - Gus Van Sant

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The novel tells the story of Henry de Tamble and his wife, Clare Abshire. Henry has a very rare genetic disorder known as "Chrono-Impairment" that allows him to travel through time. He is unable to control when he leaves, where he goes, or how long his trip will last. His destinations are tied to his subconscious, as Henry can only travel to places he has visited (or will eventually visit). There are certain things like stress that can trigger time travel for Henry. It is described as being like epilepsy or a panic attack.

Related Topics:
Stress - Epilepsy

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Henry cannot take anything with him into the future or the past. Even fillings in his teeth are left behind. He always "arrives" naked and most of his time "away" is consumed with trying to find clothing, shelter, and food.

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Henry amasses a number of survival skills including pick-pocketing, lock-picking, pan-handling, expert fighting skills and various other tricks to make it easier on himself to get by without the bare necessities. Henry actually teaches all of these things to his much younger self, on numerous trips into the past.

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Clare Abshire is a perfectly normal woman in most respects. She comes from a wealthy family, goes to public school and eventually moves to a college in Chicago. She studies art, and eventually becomes an artist herself; working with several types of molding paper.

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The relationship between Henry and Clare is a unique one. He teleports into her back yard many, many times over the course of her childhood, starting when she is six years old and continuing until her eighteenth birthday.

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The story, told more or less in chronological order, begins when 20-year-old Clare finds a 28-year-old Henry in the present. He has no recollection of her because her past is still in Henry's future. She tells him about their experiences in her childhood; and blows him away by revealing that they will marry. Henry begins to experience the events in Clare's childhood. In the novel, the future cannot be changed, and many tragic events are foreshadowed in the past.

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Clare and Henry, now married, have trouble conceiving a child because of his genetic disorder. After six miscarriages, and with the use of special medication; they eventually have a daughter named Alba, who is diagnosed with the same disorder. Even before she is born, Henry is able to travel to the future and talk with Alba. On one such visit with her, she tells him that he dies when she is five.

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Shortly thereafter, Henry time-travels to a winter location, where he contracts frostbite and hypothermia. He later loses his feet, which the book stresses are his greatest means of survival. (Up to this point, Henry's greatest asset on his various trips was his ability to outrun anyone chasing him.) It is not long before Henry teleports into the middle of a hunting accident, and is fatally shot by Clare's own father. He returns to the present moments before his death.

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Clare is devastated by Henry's passing, and feels unable to live her life without him. She finds a letter from Henry describing an experience he had with her in her future, when she is an old woman. Henry doesn't want Clare to wait for him, but he wants her to know that they will see each other again because love knows no boundaries and trancends time and death.

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The book is rich in detail, with special detail going into the meals enjoyed by Henry and Clare, and the locations they visit. A good deal of material is also spent on their sex life.

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