Henry DeTamble has an illness where he frequently vanishes, forgets what day it is, and appears on the streets without any clothing.

Henry DeTamble doesn?t have some form of dementia, he?s a time traveller in Audrey Niffenegger?s complex and beautifully written novel, The Time Traveler?s Wife.

The Bookworm Beat recently spoke with Miss Niffenegger via telephone about her novel which was recently picked up by Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt?s movie production company. It was also long-listed for the Orange Prize in 2003.

The Time Traveler?s Wife is not so much a science fiction story, as a romance about librarian Henry DeTamble and artist Clare Abshire. Henry has a strange genetic disorder ? a chronological malfunction ? that sends him backwards and forwards in his own life.

Because Henry is always naked after a time travelling episode he is often beaten up or left at the mercy of winter weather.

He learns to pick locks and steal wallets for the sake of survival. And he has no control over when he will time travel. Just attending his own wedding is fraught with complication. To make matters worse he can not actually change the future.

?What could he do?? said Miss Niffenegger. ?He is like Cassandra; he has a useless gift.

?Sometimes readers write me and say, why didn?t Henry stop 9/11. Why didn?t he tell the authorities? If he knew about it, it happened. Everything that he knows in the future is inevitable. People get very indignant about that. He can?t even save his own life. He is more of an observer.?

The Time Traveler?s Wife has a strong visual feel, possibly because the writer is also an artist.

Some of her work can be seen at the Printworks Gallery in Chicago, Illinois.

She also teaches writing, letterpress printing, and fine edition book production in the Interdisciplinary Book Arts MFA Program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts.

?I am more of a stay up late kind of person,? said Miss Niffenegger. ?You can only do one thing at a time. What I do is switch off. I spent the whole of the last school year teaching and not doing much. When you get stuck on one thing it is nice to have something else to go do. Unlike people who are just writers who just sit there when they are blocked, I can go and work on a painting.?

In The Time Traveler?s Wife, the character Clare is also an artist, prompting many people to ask if Clare was based on the writer. Miss Niffenegger said she wasn?t.

?Clare?s art is nothing like my art,? she said.

?I deliberately gave her ideas I have that I will never make. I am really bad at anything 3D so I decided to make her a sculptor. The great thing in writing is that you describe it and the reader will make it for you. So Clare does these incredible sculpture projects.?

One of the most complicated thing about the book is the timeline. Henry?s life constantly flips backwards and forwards while Clare?s moves forward in a normal way.

?I was using two different time lines,? said Miss Niffenegger.

?One was for Clare and one was keeping track of the order in which the reader is getting information and also when Henry is coming from. The publishers had proof-readers crawling all over it to make sure I can?t screw up.?

The novel took four and a half years to write, but Miss Niffenegger challenged any reader to pick out which parts were written at different times.

?The very first bits that got written were the two last scenes,? she said. ?One of the early scenes was the one where Clare loses her virginity.

?With computers you tend to cannibalise your first draft as you go. My method of writing is about perfecting each scene. I didn?t do a tremendous amount of rewriting after each one was finished.?

Miss Niffenegger said there is a slight possibility she might do a sequel about Henry and Clare?s daughter, Alba, who also time travels.

?I like Alba,? she said. ?I left it open in such a way that there could be a sequel. I don?t have a story in mind for Alba, so I don?t know.

?I am waiting to figure out what might happen to her that is worth writing. I would hate to write a sequel just to writing a sequel.?

Her second book, The Three Incestuous Sisters: An Illustrated Novel was released by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in September of last year.

She is is currently working on her next novel, which will be set in Highgate cemetery in London.

For more information about Miss Niffenegger go to www.audreyniffenegger.com.