Audrey Niffenegger finishes sequel to The Time Traveler’s Wife after 14 years

US novelist and artist Audrey Niffenegger has published Life Out of Order, the long-awaited sequel to her debut bestseller The Time Traveler’s Wife. She began work on it in 2012 and spent 14 years on it. In that time American politics changed, and the dystopian futures she imagined began to look increasingly realistic.

What the sequel is about

The Time Traveler’s Wife, published in 2003, follows an artist named Clare and Henry, who has a rare genetic condition that makes him shift involuntarily forwards and backwards in time. The new book tells the story of their daughter Alba, who has the same condition but more control over it. She wants to use her abilities for personal and political ends.

Niffenegger says she wrote her future scenes, including neo-Nazis gathering at a house party, when few people believed neo-Nazism would resurge in the US. In her view the signs were already visible. The book also depicts flooded cities, food shortages and climate breakdown, in an effort to make those threats feel less abstract.

From art to bestseller

The first novel was released by MacAdam/Cage, a small independent press, and has sold more than 9 million copies worldwide. It was made into a Hollywood film in 2009 starring Rachel McAdams, and into an HBO series in 2022. Niffenegger has never watched the film.

For her second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry (2009), she received a $5m advance. She now lives in Chicago with the Scottish artist Eddie Campbell, runs a small nonprofit arts school, Artists Book House, and continues to paint. Her book Three Incestuous Sisters is being adapted as a silent film starring Dakota Johnson, Saoirse Ronan and Jessie Buckley.

Niffenegger says she has become more politically active recently and now attends demonstrations. She urges people to act in whatever way they can, including by voting.