Audrey Niffenegger is an American writer and artist born in Michigan in 1963 and now living in Chicago. In 1997, she had an idea for a sci-fi romance graphic novel about involuntary time travel. It became The Time Traveler’s Wife, her bestselling 2003 debut novel (and subsequently a film). Her books since include Her Fearful Symmetry, The Night Bookmobile, and Raven Girl. Bizarre Romance, a collaboration with her husband, Eddie Campbell, is out now (Jonathan Cape).
1. Exhibition
Charlotte Salomon. Life? Or Theatre?
Charlotte Salomon made her extraordinary graphic memoir, Life? Or Theatre?, to stave off despair during her exile from her native Berlin to her grandparents’ home in France during the Nazi occupation. [In hundreds of paintings and drawings] she recounts the suicides of family members, the disastrous effect of the Nazis on her life, and the philosophical education she receives from her stepmother’s singing teacher. I have seen this several times, most recently at the Royal Academy. It is now at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, with extra, revelatory pages that have been in her family’s collection.
2. Documentary
I’ve always liked jazz, especially early New Orleans and Chicago style jazz, but I never felt knowledgeable about it, not in the deep way I know about rock’n’roll. My collaborator and husband, Eddie Campbell, loves it, knows about it and is always playing it at our house, and so it seemed desirable to improve my sense of jazz history. Ken Burns’s documentary TV series did the trick. It’s not light-hearted: racism, drug abuse and poverty have informed this divine music. Watching the series has intensified my respect for jazz musicians. It’s a place to begin to listen.
3. Place
House of Illustration, Granary Square, London N1
I have fallen in love with the House of Illustration, near King’s Cross in London. This beautiful new gallery, founded by Quentin Blake in 2014, is dedicated to illustration and the graphic arts. At the moment they have a quirky exhibit of North Korean graphics – until 13 May. They have a charming bookshop, and they want you to draw. To help, they have loads of fun workshops: Medical Illustration, Creating Graphic Novels, Illustrating the Animal Kingdom. It’s easy to be happy there.
4. Television
I did not own a TV until two years ago and so I never had a clue about television shows – and I was pretty snobby about that. Now I watch TV and some of it is delightful. Anyway, I am a devoted fan of author Lev Grossman’s beautiful Magicians Trilogy – he gets at the yearning confusion of late adolescence, the need to transcend our human limitations and the certainty that we will fail at this. But, oh, wait: magic is real. The TV show – The Magicians, on Syfy – is fun, occasionally brilliant, and diverges from the books in interesting ways.
5. Library
The London Library, St James’s Square, SW1
It is difficult to choose only one library, because all libraries are manifestations of the continuous library that includes every library that is, was or will be. But I’m choosing a library of my aspiration, one I have wandered through but not yet used: the storied, glorious London Library. It was founded by Thomas Carlyle, opened in 1841, possesses more than 1 million books and will lend almost any of them if one becomes a member and pays a yearly fee. I think that very soon I will succumb to its charms.
6. Music
Landfall by Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet
Landfall is the first collaboration between Laurie Anderson and the Kronos Quartet, both longtime favourites of mine, released on Nonesuch Records. It is a mournful and wondering elegy for things lost in Hurricane Sandy and a lush evocation of the events of that storm. Another thing I’m excited about musically is the Royal Opera production of Coraline at the Barbican. It’s a new opera based on Neil Gaiman’s spooky, lovely children’s book, with music by Mark-Anthony Turnage and directed by Aletta Collins, and looks quite otherworldly.
