The History of Love

In a novel "as heartbreaking as it is hilarious" a man searching for his son, and a girl seeking help for her widowed mother are linked by a long-lost book (Washington Post).

Leo Gursky taps his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he’s still alive. But it wasn’t always like this: in the Polish village of his youth, he fell in love and wrote a book…Sixty years later and half a world away, fourteen-year-old Alma, who was named after a character in that book, undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With virtuosic skill and soaring imaginative power, Nicole Krauss gradually draws these stories together toward a climax of “extraordinary depth and beauty” (Newsday).

"Vertiginously exciting…this novel is tightly packed with ingenious asides…Even at their most oddball, these flourishes reflect the deep, surprising wisdom that gives this novel its ultimate heft." - Janet Maslin, New York Times

"Krauss writes like an angel." -- The Guardian

"One of the most passionate vindications of the written word in recent fiction. It takes one’s breath away." -- Spectator

"It’s the sort of book that makes life bearable after all." - Miami Herald

"A significant novel, genuinely one of the year’s best. Emotionally wrenching yet intellectually rigorous, idea-driven but with indelible characters and true suspense." -- New York

"Big, bold, twist-your-heart sad, kick-your-heels joyful—Nicole Krauss's brilliant novel is as deep and multifaceted as love itself." - Marie Claire

"It restores your faith in fiction. It restores all sorts of faith." - Ali Smith, award-winning author of Summer