Author: Audrey Nifeneggar
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Rating: WORTHY!
This is the first of two reviews of books by Audrey Niffeneggar that I'll post today. And no, the other one isn't The Time traveler's Wife although I have read and liked that one. I found it on par with the movie, which I saw first.
This book is quite evidently rocketing towards becoming invaluable - I'm forced to assume so at any rate since B&N has a paperback listed at $62.17:
Elspeth twin nieces: Julia and Valentina, only just in their twenties, and when Elspeth dies, the nieces find thesmelves in possession of her flat (apartment) which is in London, near the renowned Highgate cemetery. Highgate opened in 1839, and has some well-known inhabitants, such as Douglas Adams, Mary Ann Cross (better known as George Eliot), Michael Faraday, Stella Gibbons, Karl Marx, and the parents and wife of Charles Dickens. Charles was, of course (and against his expressed wishes), buried in Westminster Abbey.
The two nieces are Americans, and all they knew about their aunt was that their own mother, Edwina, was Elspeth's twin. It turns out that it's a bit more complicated than that and many of you may well figure this out before you read too far. The younger twins are extremely close, so close in fact that it's actually a psychological disorder, and because of their closeness, they somehow failed to launch as the saying goes, and are both rather juvenile for their age. You know something is going to break at this point, you just don't know what, or how!
When the break comes, it comes large and serious. These twins have little interest in pursuing any sort of a life, much peferring to hang out together, dress alike, and exclude everyone but themselves from their life. Given that Elspeth's will stipulated that the twins will only inherit the flat if they reside in it for a year and their parents do not visit during that time, the two of them decide to go for it, and they get to know the area, the cemetery and their neighbors. It's these activities which slowly draw them apart.
The neighbors are, of course, all eccentric or larded with idiosyncrasy. Martin and Marjike seem to be perfect for each other. He is OCD, and she is his hostage. Martin creates crossword puzzles. Elspeth's boyfriend Robert is a scholar of the cemetery, and as they take an interest in it, they discover that their aunt has not moved on and still haunts the neighborhood - literally.
This novel is itself haunting. It's entrancingly written and the quirks and habits of not only the twins but their neighbors are captivating, especially when Elspeth's ghost shows up and Robert begins an affair with one of the twins. I had no problem reading it all the way through and enjoying it, but be warned there are eccentricities galore and oddball things happening. It's not another TIme Traveler's Wife although it does have some things in common with that. I really liked it.
