Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Leo Gursky is a man who fell in love at the age of ten and has been in love ever since. Sixty years ago in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book in honor of his love. These days he's living in America and assumes that the book, and his dreams, are irretrievably lost, until one day they return to him in a brown envelope. Meanwhile, a young girl, hoping to find a cure for her mother's loneliness, stumbles across the book that changed her mother's life and goes in search of its author. Soon these and other worlds collide in a truly captivating story of the power of love, of loneliness and of survival. This novel was inspired by the author's four grandparents (from four different countries) and by a host of authors whose work is haunted by loss: Bruno Schultz, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel. It is truly a History of Love, brimming with laughter, irony, passion, and soaring imagination.
Synopsis
Nicole Krauss' first novel, Man Walks Into a Room, was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and her short fiction has been collected in Best American Short Stories. Now The History of Love proves Krauss is among our finest and freshest literary voices. It has been decades since Leo Gursky first surrendered his heart, then wrote a book about it, at the tender age of 10, and he's been in love with the same person ever since. Leo believes his book is lost to time, but what he doesn't know is, not only has it survived 60 years without him, it has also been an inspiration to others. Fourteen-year-old Alma was even named for a character from the book. When she realizes how deeply the story touched her lonely mother, she embarks on a search for answers. The History of Love is an imaginative tale of love and loss that is at once funny, mysterious, and deeply passionate.