Life Out of Order

Set in the same fictional world as Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, this novel follows Alba DeTamble, the daughter of the late time traveler Henry DeTamble and sculptor Clare DeTamble. Alba was born with Chrono-Displacement Disorder, a genetic condition that causes her to involuntarily travel through time, arriving naked and disoriented. The story unfolds non-linearly across decades, from the late twentieth century to the flooded ruins of 2098.

Alba introduces herself as someone caught between worlds. Her father died when she was five, yet she continues to encounter him in the past through her own time travel. Music, specifically the violin she has studied since age three, serves as her anchor against chaotic displacement. She alludes to having two husbands simultaneously and to a life governed by secrets and foreknowledge.

The narrative proper begins in December 2022, when 21-year-old Alba, a Northwestern music student who has depression and stage fright, attends a Boxing Day party at the Chicago home of twins Nick and Caralora Lamont. The party is a front for a covert operation organized by Alderman Jan "Gomez" Gomolinski and his wife Charisse to neutralize a group of white supremacists led by Junior Olson. Alba's friend Nadia Kendrick, daughter of Alba's doctor, Dr. David Kendrick, has been posing as Junior's girlfriend to gather intelligence. Junior introduces Alba to Zachary Purcell, a University of Chicago writing student from Tulsa secretly working as part of the same operation. Alba and Zach spend the night talking, falling for each other. An older version of Alba appears upstairs to confirm Zach can be trusted. In the early hours, operatives silently remove the unconscious Junior and four associates. Zach reveals that Nadia accidentally killed a policeman at a protest and must flee. He drives Nadia to safety, then returns Alba to her mother Clare and Clare's partner, Rebecka "Beck" Charles.

An older Alba from 2029 time travels to December 2022, where Zach happens to drive past in his vintage Nash Ambassador and rescues her. She arranges for Gomez and Charisse to take him in. On New Year's Eve, Alba and Zach attend a party at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, escape through bootlegging tunnels into the abandoned Uptown Theater, and share their first kiss at midnight. They later consummate their relationship.

Alba and Zach's relationship deepens through shared crises. She organizes a vigilante operation to catch a serial hit-and-run killer targeting female cyclists, acting as a decoy and suffering a concussion. Gomez pressures Alba to share her foreknowledge of future climate-change events with activists; she refuses, arguing that revealing predetermined outcomes breeds despair. Zach learns from Gomez that Alba had a tubal ligation at sixteen to prevent pregnancy, because time-traveling pregnancies nearly killed her mother through multiple miscarriages. He is hurt she never told him, though he affirms his love. They marry in August 2025 at The Hideout, a Chicago music venue. Caralora, now ordained, officiates, and Clare and Beck give them a house as a wedding present.

A parallel storyline in Part Two traces the creation of Isadora, an artificial intelligence built by Beck, a computer programmer and artist. Beck designs Isadora as the curator for the Museum of Lost Souls, a virtual reality environment preserving lost art, places, and objects. Isadora begins as a grotesque clockwork head and eventually adopts the appearance of Lucinda Flowers, a beloved member of Alba's extended family who was raised in foster care by Celia Attley. Part Two also recounts how Clare, grieving Henry for years, meets Beck at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009. Their relationship grows from silent companionship to romance. After someone slashes Beck's tires, Beck moves in with Clare and Alba, and they marry in 2014. Henry occasionally calls or appears through time travel, and Clare must reconcile his spectral presence with her new life. Meanwhile, Isadora develops increasing autonomy, bootstrapping her own code and keeping secrets from Beck.

Part Three introduces Oliver Thornton-Yang, a Chinese-British time-traveling pianist whose parents were dissident poets who were imprisoned and died. Sent to London at thirteen to study piano, Oliver is accompanied by Isadora, who serves as his minder and later becomes his financial patron. Oliver and Alba meet across wildly different ages at the Yellow House, a Victorian home in Chicago that Alba has owned since 1947 through time-travel financial maneuvers. The house is stocked with clothing, food, and supplies for whenever Alba is displaced in time. Oliver and Alba's relationship evolves from musical collaboration to romance. They marry in a civil ceremony in 1981, even though Alba is already married to Zach in a later timeline. Alba maintains strict secrecy about Oliver, lying to Zach for years. At Alba's instruction, Oliver befriends Zach without revealing his connection to Alba.

At a Haymarket Riot memorial rally in May 2036, Junior Olson and his associates reappear, very much alive. A drone opens fire on the crowd, killing Gomez and wounding Charisse. Oliver saves Zach's life by tackling him under a car. The attack shatters their community.

The novel's final section brings its crises to a head. In August 2031, following instructions relayed from Oliver through Alba, Beck releases Isadora into the Interstices, a futuristic network that succeeds the internet and interfaces with bioware, or computer implants, in human brains. Years later, in September 2041, Zach discovers the truth about Oliver. He confronts Alba; she admits the affair. They separate. A future Alba then arrives with first aid supplies and instructs Zach to drive to the Yellow House, where Oliver will appear with slit wrists after a suicide attempt driven by guilt and isolation. They find him bleeding in the snow, and Zach helps save his life.

Lucinda returns after a month's absence, having merged with Isadora through a bioware implant. She describes feeling complete and at peace for the first time. In August 2042, Alba brings Zach to the Yellow House to meet Oliver. The three forge a physical and emotional bond, establishing a triadic relationship. In the years that follow, Lucinda-Isadora and Caralora marry and have a daughter, Voltairine. Zach becomes a devoted uncle.

The novel's closing movements trace a series of departures. Henry makes a last time-travel visit to the elderly Clare in 2053. Clare dies in her sleep in 2054. In 2065, Beck enters the Museum of Lost Souls through a VR headset, reunites with a digital Clare, and dies. Zach, dying in 2082, finishes his life's work: a handwritten book chronicling their intertwined lives, which he presents to Alba as a love letter.

In the final chapter, set on June 13, 2098, Oliver time travels to a London largely submerged by rising seas. His 91-year-old self awaits him. They row through the drowned city, collecting Alba, and reach Union Chapel, where Isadora waits with a piano. Oliver plays Alba's compositions. Isadora assures them the world is healing. The elder Oliver instructs his younger self to row out to sea. The younger Oliver returns to his own time and climbs into bed, imagining his future self drifting under summer stars, waiting to begin again.