Niffenegger's 'Time Traveler's Wife' Sequel Arrives After 14 Years — SkimNews
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- Audrey Niffenegger began writing 'Life Out of Order' in 2012, just after Obama's re-election, and spent 14 years imagining America's political trajectory decades into the future — a vision that became "worryingly realistic" as U.S. politics shifted during the writing process.
- 'Life Out of Order' follows Alba, the daughter of Henry and Clare from 'The Time Traveler's Wife,' who inherited her father's involuntary time-traveling condition and uses it for "personal and political ends"; an early scene depicts neo-Nazis at a house party.
- 'The Time Traveler's Wife' (2003, MacAdam/Cage) sold more than 9 million copies globally after novelist Scott Turow recommended it on the USA Today show and Richard and Judy picked it for their UK book club; it was adapted into a 2009 film starring Rachel McAdams (critically panned; Niffenegger never watched it) and a 2022 HBO series.
- Niffenegger received a $5 million advance for her 2009 second novel 'Her Fearful Symmetry,' a figure she said made her uncomfortable because "people are kind of fascinated because it's weird that I would make money – ever."
- Niffenegger's graduate-school illustrated novel 'Three Incestuous Sisters' is being adapted as a silent film directed by Alice Rohrwacher, with a screenplay by Ottessa Moshfegh and starring Dakota Johnson, Saoirse Ronan, and Jessie Buckley.
- Niffenegger, 63, lives in Chicago with her husband Eddie Campbell, founded the nonprofit arts school Artists Book House in 2019, and is recovering from a "long and serious illness" she declined to detail.
Why it matters: Niffenegger's 14-year writing timeline transforms the sequel from literary event into political document: she says she extrapolated from post-Reagan Republican politics to fascism, and an early neo-Nazi scene was written before that resurgence entered mainstream American life. For readers who bought 9 million copies of the original as a love story, the new book — narrated by a daughter who weaponizes time travel for political ends — repositions the franchise as dystopian fiction.
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