Istop4books read and liked Susan's review of The History of Love:

"A powerful story about the loneliness of an elderly man, a Holocaust survivor, Leopold Gursky. He is a writer who is never heard, at least not in his own voice. Krauss paints the portrait of invisibility with such sorrowful accuracy. Leon is compl...more A powerful story about the loneliness of an elderly man, a Holocaust survivor, Leopold Gursky. He is a writer who is never heard, at least not in his own voice. Krauss paints the portrait of invisibility with such sorrowful accuracy. Leon is completely alone and "all I want is not to die on a day when I went unseen." Because of this, he purposely draws negative attention to himself, just for the sake of getting noticed. Such as dropping change on the floor in a busy checkout line. The most painful element of his invisibility is that his son does not known that he exists, having been raised as another man's child. The other voice in the story is 15 year old Alma Singer, named after the Alma in a book called The History of Love. Her loneliness and sadness of losing a father early brings her to Leon and their journeys cross in a most amazing way. Quite an ingenious story of a girl's coming of age and an old man's dissolution into eternal invisibility. Leon's story is heartbreaking, especially to the reader who has the ability to step back and view the puzzle as a whole, with all star crossed pieces in place. An amazing book.

notes...*spoilers*

In the middle of it, and thoroughly enjoying my first non-manga, non-romance adult book that I've read in quite some time. There are three voices to the story (as yet) : Leo Gursky, an 80 year old Holocaust survivor living in NYC. He is completely and utterly alone. His is a sad story. His biggest fear is to be invisible and to die unknown. Because of this he has a tendancy to draw attention to himself in negative ways - such as purposely dropping his change in a long line at the cashier, or purposely not knowing how to order a coffee at Starbucks, and even posing as a nude model for an art class. He and his neighbor (with whom he shares the same Polish/Russian hometown of Slomin) check up on each other once a day, just to make sure that if the other has died that they will not go unnoticed. Heartbreaking, really. And even more so once his story begins to unfold. He loved a yet named girl in Slonim, who escapes before the war, unknownst to him she leaves pregnant with his child. The Nazis come, he loses his family, and Leo hides in the forest for 3.5 years. By the time he gets to NYC (where she is) years later, she has already married and Leo's child, now 5, is being raised as another man's son. She did not receive his letters and presumed him dead. Now Leo, unable to ackonwledge his son, watches from a distance and when his son becomes a somewhat notable writer, he still cannot face him. At his emotionally high place in the novel, when he is at Starbucks, thinking that the world is great, all comes crashing down when he sees his son's obituary in the newspaper. He attends the funeral, pretending to speak only Yiddish, so as not to give the game away. After the funeral he realizes that he has lived his life for the son he could never acknowledge, and does not know what to do with himself now that he is gone.

The second voice is 15 year old (?) Alma, whose widowed mother has begun to translate a story from Spanish into English - "The History of Love" purportedly written by a Polish immigratnt to S. America (name...). Alma tries to find a man for her mother and also tries to learn more about her adventurous Israeli father who died of cancer when she was 7. She has a habit of lying and also has a tendancy of forging letters in her mother's name, mostly to capture the interest of another man for her. Alma herself is named for the main "character" in the book that her mother is translating. Her younger brother "Bird" is a naive religious outcast in NYC an believes himself to possibily be the messiah or one of the 36 Just Men (lamed vovnik). Bird has a very mystical quality to him.

The third voice seems to be a third-person account of the purported author of The History of Love and provides unbiased details of this man's life.

The novel as a whole is sprinkled with Jewish history and Yiddish phrases, which I find appealing although I don't understand all of the words. I am curious to see how the unrelated characters will come together, although I have my ideas.

finished it...

wow. I knew it was going in the direction of Leon being the true author of A History of Love. However, I didn't expect Avi Litvinoff's wife Rose to play accomplice in the way she did. Avi, Leon's envious friend, is entrusted with the manuscript when he flees Poland. Years pass and he assumes that Leon has been killed, and he eventually publishes the novel under his own name, after changing the names of characters....except for Alma's name. Because without Alma there never would have been a story. It is this key that leads Alma Singer to Leon Gursky 60 years later. It turns out Rosa finds out about Leon, who sends a letter asking for the manuscript back. however, it has already been published in S. America so she claims it was destroyed in a flood. However, she goes so far to flood the house so that both his and Zvi's manuscripts are destroyed. Avi dies with a heavy heart thinking that he lied to Rosa all those years and was never quite worthy of her.

Alma's mother is asked to translate it by Jacob Marcus, who remembers being read part of it as a child. Alma discovers that Jacob Marcus is the character of one of Isaac Moritz's books (Leon's son). However, he dies before she can reach him. The fact that it was really Isaac was quite a shocker. Bird takes a call from Bernard Moritz (the brother, as Alma left a letter for Isaac)....Isaac doubted his paternity upon finding letters from Leon to Alma Mereminski, with parts of the manuscripts inside. He was looking for the author, correctly believing him to be his father. So, in the end, Leon's son does read The History of Love, believing the author to be his father.

upon Isaac's death, the manuscript Leon sent him (Words for Everything) is being published as the last novel of Isaac...it is mistakenly believed to be his writing. This part is left unresolved in the story. Leon is happy knowing that his son may have actually read at least part of it, and therefore would know who his father really is. However, does Leon ever get the credit he deserves? Or is the fact that he gets acknowledged by his son enough??

Alma Singer herself grows a lot in the story. I was sad that the relationship with Misha is never touched back upon. Do they work things out? Bird, to neither of their knowing, arranges a meeting between Alma and Leon in Central Park. Bird mistakenly believes that Alma is looking for her "real" father and tries to help her out. Of course this notion is ridiculous, as there is no secret regarding her paternity.

One of the saddest surprises in the end is that Bruno died in 1941, by Leon's own admission. Therefore, he really and truly is alone. The one friend the reader though he had is not there. Strangely, this friend appeared months after Leon changed his ways from being a bitter old man into a better one, albeit invisible.

another great line from the book - "those used to being overheard by everyone were often at a loss for how to make themselves heard by someone" (less) "