The History of Love: A Novel

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