The novel tells the story of Henry DeTamble (born 1963), a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and his wife, Clare Abshire (born 1971), an artist from a wealthy family who makes paper sculptures. Henry has a rare genetic disorder, which comes to be known as Chrono-Displacement during his lifetime, that causes him to involuntarily travel through time. When 20-year-old Clare meets 28-year-old Henry at the Newberry Library in 1991, he has never seen her before, although she has known him most of her life. Clare's past is still in Henry's future. Henry begins to experience the events in Clare's childhood at the same time that he experiences life with the adult Clare in the present. In the novel, the future cannot be changed, and many tragic events are foreshadowed in the past.
Henry is unable to control his time traveling: when he leaves, where he goes, or how long his trip will last. His destinations are tied to his subconscious, as Henry most often travels to places he has visited or will eventually visit. Very often, Henry is taken back to the moment his mother died in a car accident that he survived, and is forced to observe the car crash again and again. Certain things like stress or flickering images (like those of television) can trigger time travel for Henry. It is described as being similar to epilepsy or a panic attack, though on brain imagery, his brain shows patterns similar to those who are schizophrenic. He uses running as a way of keeping calm and remaining in the present. But more importantly, he needs to be able to run fast to escape any unknown situations he could travel back (or forward) to at any given time.
Henry cannot take anything with him into the future or the past. Even fillings in his teeth are left behind. He always "arrives" naked and must work hard while "away" to find clothing, shelter, and food without getting beaten up or arrested. He amasses a number of survival skills including pickpocketing, lock-picking, and expert fighting skills. He learns many of these skills from older versions of himself, either when the older self is time-traveling into his own past, or when his older and younger selves' time-traveling coincides.
Henry frequently time travels into Clare's childhood and adolescence in South Haven, Michigan, starting in 1977 when she is six years old. On one of his early visits, Henry dictates to her a list of the visits he will make to her; she writes these dates into a diary so she can expect his visits. As an adult, when all of the visits are through, she gives the list to him to memorize so that he will know them when he returns to her in her past. This is an example of a predestination paradox, since the knowledge of the dates forms a causal loop, with Henry having got the list of dates from Clare when she was an adult, and Henry having memorized the list and dictated it to Clare on one of his first visits in 1977. During one of Henry's visits, he inadvertently reveals that he and Clare will be married in the future, confirming what a Ouija board spelled out to Clare and her friends at a sleepover. His last visit takes place on her eighteenth birthday in 1989 where he and Clare make love for the first time, and then they are separated for two years until they finally meet in real time for both of them.
Clare and Henry get married but have trouble bringing a pregnancy to term because of his genetic disorder. After six miscarriages, Henry wishes to save Clare further pain and has a vasectomy. However, a past version of Henry, pre-vasectomy, travels to the future and makes love to Clare. She becomes pregnant and carries the child to term. They have a daughter named Alba who is also diagnosed with the same disorder. Unlike Henry however, Alba has more control over her destination when she time travels. Before she is born, Henry travels to the future and meets Alba, who is ten years old and on a school field trip. During this visit, Henry is confronted by Alba's teacher, who is suspicious of his identity; Henry then learns that he has already died in real-time by the time Alba has turned ten. Alone with her dad, ten-year-old Alba confirms that he died when she was five years old.
During what is to be his last year of life, Henry time-travels to a Chicago parking garage on a frigid winter night where he is unable to find shelter. He experiences hypothermia and develops frostbite. When Henry returns to his 'present', his feet must be amputated. Henry and Clare both know that without the ability to escape by running, Henry will certainly die within the next few jumps back in time. On New Year's Eve, the DeTambles throw a party, ostensibly to celebrate the new year, but the real reason is known only to Henry: he knows that the journey that will take his life will happen that night, and he doesn't want Clare to be alone when that happens. Just before midnight, Henry time-travels into the middle of the Michigan woods during deer season and is fatally shot by Clare's brother. This scene is foreshadowed earlier in the novel. Henry returns to the present and dies in Clare’s arms.
Clare is devastated by Henry's passing, and feels unable to live her life without him. She finds a letter from Henry describing an experience he had with her in her future when she is an old woman, though he refuses to tell her what occurs. The last thing we see is Claire as an old woman, still waiting to see Henry for the last time.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Traveler%27s_Wife#Plot
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