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Original Essays | September 17, 2013
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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionsThe History of Love: A Novelby Nicole Krauss
Awards
Staff Pick
In this brilliant work on love and loss, two stories, past and present, merge. With compassion and humor, Nicole Krauss writes a beautiful and incredibly imaginative novel, delivering readers through twists and turns to arrive at a wholly satisfying conclusion. Few more endearing characters can be found in literature today. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments: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 is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And though Leo doesn't know it, that book survived, inspiring fabulous circumstances, even love. Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that very book. And although she has her hands full — keeping track of her brother, Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah), and taking copious notes on How to Survive in the Wild — she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With consummate, spellbinding skill, Nicole Krauss gradually draws together their stories. This extraordinary book was inspired by the author's four grandparents and by a pantheon of authors whose work is haunted by loss — Bruno Schulz, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, and more. It is truly a history of love: a tale brimming with laughter, irony, passion, and soaring imaginative power. Review:"The last words of this haunting novel resonate like a pealing bell. 'He fell in love. It was his life.' This is the unofficial obituary of octogenarian Leo Gursky, a character whose mordant wit, gallows humor and searching heart create an unforgettable portrait. Born in Poland and a WWII refugee in New York, Leo has become invisible to the world. When he leaves his tiny apartment, he deliberately draws attention to himself to be sure he exists. What's really missing in his life is the woman he has always loved, the son who doesn't know that Leo is his father, and his lost novel, called The History of Love, which, unbeknownst to Leo, was published years ago in Chile under a different man's name. Another family in New York has also been truncated by loss. Teenager Alma Singer, who was named after the heroine of The History of Love, is trying to ease the loneliness of her widowed mother, Charlotte. When a stranger asks Charlotte to translate The History of Love from Spanish for an exorbitant sum, the mysteries deepen. Krauss (Man Walks into a Room) ties these and other plot strands together with surprising twists and turns, chronicling the survival of the human spirit against all odds. Writing with tenderness about eccentric characters, she uses earthy humor to mask pain and to question the universe. Her distinctive voice is both plangent and wry, and her imagination encompasses many worlds." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:"[A] brilliant novel....A most unusual and original piece of fiction — and not to be missed." Kirkus Reviews
Review:"[I]ngenious and coherent....Krauss has created a crazy spiderweb of associations and missed connections. Miraculously, she actually manages to make all the delicate filaments not only hold together but support the weight of the enormously ambitious narrative. (Grade: A-)" Entertainment Weekly
Review:"While there are times when Ms. Krauss's gamesmanship risks overpowering her larger purpose, her book's resolution pulls everything that precedes it into sharp focus. It has been headed for this moment of truth all along." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Review:"Even in moments of startling peculiarity, [Krauss] touches the most common elements of the heart....In the final pages, the fractured stories of The History of Love fall together like a desperate embrace." Washington Post
Review:"An achievement of extraordinary depth and beauty. What might have been a dirge has been transformed into a triumphant anthem." Newsweek
Review:"[The novel] zips through such webs of mystification that reading it alternates between astonished pleasure and a decoding so laborious as to make you suspect that the message, plain, is less remarkable than the devices used to obscure it." Los Angeles Times
Review:"Venturing into Paul Auster territory in her graceful inquiry into the interplay between life and literature, Krauss is winsome, funny, and affecting." Booklist
Review:"Krauss' novel abounds with myriad literary documents — journal entries, letters, lists, translations, excerpts from an autobiography — penned by her characters, and done so in cleverly distinctive styles that spark each personality to life." San Francisco Chronicle
Review:"Only 30 years old, Krauss is a writer of astonishing breadth. Her first novel...was well-received. This book, too, is headed for accolades. With luck, Krauss has many decades ahead of sculpting deliciously witty, complicated novels." Cleveland Plain Dealer
Review:"[O]ne fine work....As in the best novels, many questions are raised and no easy answers provided. The characters are compelling and true, and the reader will come through the book not just caring about but wanting to heal them." Denver Post
Synopsis:With consummate, spellbinding skill, Nicole Krauss gradually draws together the stories of Leo Gursky and 14-year-old Alma. This extraordinary book was inspired by the author's four grandparents and by a pantheon of authors whose work is haunted by loss — Bruno Schulz, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, and more. It is truly a history of love: a tale brimming with laughter, irony, passion, and soaring imaginative power.
Synopsis:At least as heartbreaking as it is hilarious.Brilliant. An achievement of extraordinary depth and beauty.The novel’s achievement is precisely, and not negligibly, this: to have made a new fiction—alternately delightful and hilarious and deeply affecting.Moving and virtuosic.Luminous prose. . . . Krauss is a masterful storyteller . . . a writer of astonishing breadth.Ingenious.A significant novel, genuinely one of the year’s best. Emotionally wrenching yet intellectually rigorous, idea-driven but with indelible characters and true suspense.
Synopsis:The illuminating national bestseller: "Vertiginously exciting...vibrantly imagined....[Krauss is] a prodigious talent."--Janet Maslin, New York Times
Synopsis:New York Times Bestseller
Amazon.com #1 Best Book of the Year in Literature and Fiction Winner of the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing Winner of the Borders Original Voices Award Finalist for the Orange Prize #1 Booksense Pick Winner of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award Winner of France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Ėtranger Award The illuminating national bestseller: "Vertiginously exciting...vibrantly imagined....[Krauss is] a prodigious talent."--Janet Maslin, New York Times Synopsis: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. New York Times Bestseller Synopsis:A lost book reappears, drawing together the lives of the irrepressible Leo Gursky who has arrived at the end of his life, a locksmith searching for the son who's never known him, and young Alma Singer, desperate to find her namesake and a cure for her mother's loneliness. Gradually their stories merge into a single triumph of the imagination over loss.
Synopsis: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).
About the AuthorNicole Krauss is the author of the novel Man Walks into a Room. Her work has appeared most recently in the New Yorker. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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