THE HISTORY OF LOVE | NICOLE KRAUSS | 2005

Where to start? Ok, this is one of those story within a story books. And a couple of eras to boot. I have to admit I put it down as I didn’t like the first character, the almost 80 year old Leo Gursky. I found him to be a pastiche of Jewish New Yorker with a self-deprecating patter that grated. But I did a quick flip through the pages and saw some intriguing printing devices that spurred me on. And I’m so glad I did.

During WW2 in Poland Leo falls in love with Alma at age ten and has loved her ever since. He writes about that love. Leo assumed the book was lost when he entrusted it to a friend. But it wasn’t lost and was printed in Chile. In New York in the present day, fourteen year old Alma (no relation but named after the original Alma) sneaks a look at a book her mother is translating about the history of love; the book Leo wrote but isn’t attributed to him. Young Alma searches for the real author and eventually finds him on a bench in Central Park.

The chapters alternate between Leo and Alma’s story. Leo’s voice is poignant and at times heart-wrenching; Alma’s is questioning and full of teenage angst. Why does her young brother Bird behave as he does? Who is the original Alma? Although it seems complex once I settled into the rhythm of the chapters each with their age-appropriate and beautiful prose I could see that the pieces of the puzzle would eventually be connected. There’s a lot of raw humanity in this book and a lot of dry humour of the Jewish kind.