The History of Love: A Novel
Description
ONE OF THE MOST LOVED NOVELS OF THE DECADE.
A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness.
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).
Praise for The History of Love: A Novel
Vertiginously exciting…Beyond the vigorous whiplash that keeps The History of Love moving (and keeps its reader off balance until a stunning finale), 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
At least as heartbreaking as it is hilarious.
— Washington Post
Krauss writes like an angel.
— 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
Nicole Krauss's gripping new voice doesn't work its way into the pantheon of American voices: it literally walks straight up to them and asks them to move over.
— Andre Aciman