The History of Love

Leo Gursky wrote a book, The History of Love, as a young man but he thinks it has disappeared. Leo is now an old man who drops things in public places and poses nude for a drawing class just so he will be noticed on the day he dies. Alma Singer was named after a character from that book and her mother has been hired to translate it. Alma's father has recently died and her mother and brother aren't handling it so well. Nicole Krauss weaves the stories of these two characters, as well as solving the mystery of what happened to Gursky's book. Krauss has created two very interesting and believable characters, Leo in particular, and Gursky's novel is itself a character as various excerpts are sprinkled throughout the book. I also highly recommend the audio version. The narrator for Leo's character is absolutely brilliant.