REVIEW Love defies the ages in 'Time Traveler's Wife'

The story's bittersweet tenderness makes it credible.
By KATY MILLER
ORLANDO SENTINEL
"The Time Traveler's Wife," by Audrey Niffenegger; MacAdam/Cage ($25)
Imagine knowing the man you will marry your whole life. When you meet, he is 30 years older than you. He contends to be a time traveler. He becomes a collection of small moments in your life as you grow from a girl to a woman. He becomes an event to look forward to until you meet in real time.
This is the life of Clare Abshire DeTamble and her husband, Henry, as chronicled in Audrey Niffenegger's inventive first novel, "The Time Traveler's Wife." The premise may sound strange, but Niffenegger infuses her love story with such bittersweet tenderness that it becomes credible.
Henry, a librarian, suffers from a rare genetic disease called "Chrono-impairment disorder," causing him to spontaneously transport himself to different time periods within his lifetime. Unfortunately for Henry, he has no control over when he will disappear. Even attendance at his own wedding is uncertain.
At the heart
But the heart of the novel isn't the fact that Henry is a time traveler, vanishing, for example, from the present to Chicago's Field Museum in 1968, where he runs into himself as a boy. The heart of this novel is the love Henry and Clare share that allows them to overcome the hardships of living with Henry's disease.
When Henry is transported, he arrives naked with no idea where he is, or what the date is. He learns to steal, fight, beg and run simply to survive. Artist Clare is left behind to worry and wonder when her traveler will come home and what condition he will be in when he arrives. A husband disappearing in the middle of watering the lawn is one thing. Having him return battered and bruised and who knows when is another.
The book is all about desire and longing. There is a strong sexual bond between Clare and Henry when they are together; they each yearn for the other when they are apart. Henry wishes he could have a normal life and be with Clare instead of being whisked off unannounced. She waits for him her whole life.
"When I was a child, I looked forward to seeing Henry," Clare states. "Every visit was an event. Now every absence is a nonevent, a subtraction, an adventure I will hear about when my adventurer materializes at my feet, bleeding or whistling, smiling or shaking. Now I am afraid when he is gone."
More longing
Other characters are also full of longing: Henry's father, who wastes away after the death of Henry's mother; Clare's friend Gomez, who loves her and hopes to be with her if Henry doesn't come home; Ingrid, Henry's former lover who can't overcome his leaving her. Clare also wants desperately to have a child with Henry.
Niffenegger has a wonderful way of describing the characters' emotions, such as when Henry sees Clare in a bookstore:
"Her hair is trying to escape from the coil on her head, and one strap of her sundress is hanging off her shoulder, exposing a bit of her bathing suit. This is so poignant, so powerful, that I urgently need to walk over to her, touch her, possibly, if no one is looking, bite her, but at the same time I don't want this moment to end, and suddenly I notice Gomez, who is standing in the Mystery section looking at Clare with an expression that so exactly mirrors my own feelings that I am forced to see. "
"At this moment, Clare looks up at me and says, 'Henry, look, it's Pompeii.' She holds out the tiny book of picture postcards, and something in her voice says, See, I have chosen you."