Before she dies, Elspeth tries to explain to Robert the nature of her relationship with Edie. The narrator, in describing the physical appearance of Julia and Valentina, remarks that the twins 'might have been cast as Victorian orphans in a made for TV movie.' How do the twins appear to the outside world? Why do you think Niffenegger decided to make them beautiful but fragile-'like dandelions gone to seed?'Ĥ. Why might this be significant? In Chicago, why is Jack 'relieved' when he hears that Elsepth has died? How do Jack's feelings for Elspeth foreshadow events later in the novel?ģ. How does Niffenegger strive to make this supernatural occurrence believable in the novel? Do you think she succeeds? Why do you think Niffenegger is attracted to subjects like time travel and ghosts?Ģ. Just as she did with time travel in The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger made the bold choice to center the story in Her Fearful Symmetry around a fantastical subject: ghosts. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.ġ. These discussion questions for Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. They also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including-perhaps-their aunt. Julia and Valentina become involved with their living neighbors: Martin, a composer of crossword puzzles who suffers from crippling OCD, and Robert, Elspeth’s elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. The girls move to Elspeth’s flat, which borders the vast Highgate Cemetery, where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Stella Gibbons, and other luminaries are buried. So were the girls’ aunt Elspeth and their mother, Edie. There are two conditions for this inheritance: that they live in the flat for a year before they sell it and that their parents not enter it. Their English aunt Elspeth Noblin has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. Julia and Valentina Poole are twenty-year-old sisters with an intense attachment to each other. From the author of the #1 bestselling The Time Traveler's Wife, a spectacularly compelling novel-set in and near Highgate Cemetery in London, about the love between twins, men and women, ghosts and the living.

Her fearful symmetry book