Musings of a South African Bookworm

When I discovered that the author of ‘The Time Traveller’s wife’ Audrey Niffeneger had written a new novel, I was extremely excited. I loved her first novel! It had the oddness which I love about books, and her writing is brilliant, so when I saw her latest book released, I contacted Audrey to find out if she would be interested in being interviewed for The Book Club Blog.

As well as being interested, (keep your eyes open in the new year for an exclusive with her) I was also sent a review copy of her book! How pleased and blessed was I? Due to it being sent from America it took a few weeks to arrive, but when it did, I started it straight away and now, my fellow readers, my verdict.

This book is completely different to her first novel in that it concerns two sisters, twins and not just any sort of twins, but symmetrical twins. They are mirror copies of each other and by that I mean internally too. Where it is similar is that it is also based on a relationship. The twins relationship to each other.

Blurb on the back cover:

When Elspeth Noblin dies of cancer, she leaves her London apartment to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina. These American girls never met their English aunt;they only knew that their mother, too, was a twin, and that Elspeth was her sisiter.  Julia and Vantina are semi-normal teenagers, with seemingly little interest in college, finding jobs, or anything outside their home in the suburbs of Chicago. They are twenty, and have an intense attachment to each other. The girls move to Elspeth’s flat, which borders the vast and ornate Highgate Cemetery, where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Radclyffe Hall, Stella Gibbons, and Karl Marx are living residents of their building. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword-puzzle setter suffering from crippling Obsessive-Compulsive disorder; Marijke, Martin’s devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth’s elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt’s neighbours, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including – perhaps – their aunt.

This is a slightly dark and mesmerising story that Audrey has weaved. It is about love and identity, about secrets and sisterhood, and about the tenacity of life, even after death. It takes you into her world, and sometimes brings a slightly off colour feeling to the reader and makes you wonder what on earth the characters were thinking!

All in all, I found this quite a bizarre book, showing the complexities of human relationships but uplifting at times too. If you enjoy reading rather odd books, give this one a go. I would love to know if anyone has read it, it would be great to chat about it…