The Time Traveler's Wife characters

Appears from the start

A Chicago librarian with a rare genetic disorder that causes him to travel through time involuntarily. Without warning he is pulled out of the present and dropped, naked and disoriented, into another moment of his own past or future, unable to control when it happens or where he lands. This condition has shaped his whole life, forcing him to survive by his wits in strange times and places. Sharp, restless, and a little haunted, he loves the woman he will marry across a lifetime knotted out of order.

Appears from the start

An artist who works with paper and has loved Henry since she was a child, because an older version of him time-traveled repeatedly into the meadow near her family's home while she was growing up. For her the relationship has always been there; she spends much of her youth waiting for the days he appears and for the day she will finally meet him in ordinary time. Patient, devoted, and strong-willed, she builds her life around a love shaped by his unpredictable comings and goings.

Appears from the start

Henry's father, a gifted violinist in a symphony orchestra, who has never recovered from the loss of Henry's mother. Sunk in grief and drink, he is emotionally distant from his son, and their relationship is strained by old sorrow.

Appears from the start

A girlfriend from Henry's life before he and Clare are together in ordinary time. Beautiful and fragile, her relationship with the unreliable, unpredictable Henry is a troubled one.

Appears from the start

A friend of Clare's, a committed leftist and lawyer who becomes part of Henry and Clare's circle. Loyal and outspoken, he harbors complicated feelings about Clare that persist through the years.

Appears from the start

Clare's close friend and Gomez's partner, warm and grounded, one of the couple's steady companions over the course of their life together.

Appears from the start

A geneticist Henry consults about his condition. Intrigued by the puzzle of a man who involuntarily moves through time, he studies Henry's biology in the hope of understanding, and perhaps treating, the disorder.