The History of Love

The History of Love (2005) is a novel by American writer Nicole Krauss. The book, Krauss’s second novel, was awarded the 2008 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing and was a finalist for the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction. It is a novel about the intersection of love, loneliness, language, and literature, as three characters are connected by a mysterious book called The History of Love. The novel plays with postmodern techniques like fragmentation and creative typography.

This study guide references the 2006 Norton paperback edition of the novel.

Plot Summary

The History of Love comprises three simultaneous stories interweaving as the plot progresses.

Leopold Gursky, who goes by Leo, grows up in Poland before World War II. As a boy, Leo is an aspiring writer and falls in love with his neighbor, Alma Mereminski. The two share a passionate romance but are separated when Alma leaves for America to escape the threat of war. Neither of them knows that she is pregnant with Leo’s baby. Leo begins writing a book, The History of Love, inspired by his love of Alma. He copies out chapters that he mails to her but never receives a response. He is soon forced to flee as well and eventually immigrates to New York, where Alma settled.

Nearly five years pass. Thinking Leo died in the war, Alma gave birth to Leo’s son, Isaac Moritz, and married another man. Leo is devastated. He keeps track of his son throughout his school years and later when he becomes a famous writer, but the two never meet.

In the novel’s present day, Alma Mereminski has passed away, and Leo is an elderly man who lives alone in Manhattan awaiting his death. His only companion is his childhood friend Bruno, who lives in his building. After suffering a heart attack, Leo begins writing again, documenting his life story in a book titled Words for Everything. Leo mails the manuscript to his son but later discovers an obituary for Isaac Moritz in the newspaper and learns that he passed away.

Across the city in Brooklyn, 14-year-old Alma Singer lives with her brother, Bird, and their mother. Her parents named her Alma after a character in the mysterious book The History of Love, which her father discovered in a bookstore in Buenos Aires and gave to her mother at the beginning of their relationship. Alma’s father passed away, and the girl worries about her mother’s happiness. One day, her mother receives a letter from a man calling himself Jacob Marcus. Jacob wants Alma’s mother to translate The History of Love from Spanish to English for $100,000. Alma imagines this could be the start of a new romance for her mother, and she intercepts the envelopes with the translations to add letters from her mother.

When Jacob Marcus stops writing, Alma decides to search for him. She starts collecting clues and concludes that Alma Mereminski, Alma Singer’s namesake from The History of Love, must be a real person.

Back in Manhattan, Leo returns from his son’s funeral to find a strange brown paper package in his apartment. When he opens it, he discovers the manuscript of The History of Love, which he wrote as a young man in Poland. However, the text is in English with Spanish names, not the original Yiddish as Leo wrote it. The last time Leo saw The History of Love, he had given it to his friend Zvi Litvinoff, who was leaving Poland.

Litvinoff eventually settled in Chile, where he married a woman named Rosa. Thinking Leo died in the war, Litvinoff began transcribing The History of Love, changing the names and places to a South American setting. The novel was published in a small run of just 2,000 copies under Litvinoff’s name. Some years later, Leo tracked down Litvinoff’s address in Chile and wrote, asking for his manuscript back. Rosa flooded the house to destroy the original text and lamented to Leo that the book was lost. Leo is, therefore, shocked to find the manuscript delivered to his apartment.

Leo takes the train to Connecticut, where he breaks into his son’s house, hoping to learn whether or not Isaac read the manuscript of Words for Everything before his death. He sees no sign of the text and feels he has lost everything.

Alma Singer finally tracks down Alma Mereminski but learns that she died. However, she learns that Alma had a son, and she begins investigating Isaac Moritz. Alma visits the library and borrows Isaac Moritz’s most famous book. She discovers that the protagonist’s name is Jacob Marcus, the same name as the man who wrote to her mother asking for the translation. Alma goes to Isaac Moritz’s home, hoping to speak to the writer, but with no luck. She leaves a note instead.

Meanwhile, Alma’s younger brother, who goes by Bird and believes he might be the Messiah, reads his sister’s diary and learns about her search. Seeing the name Alma with a different surname, he guesses incorrectly that his sister has learned David Singer was not her father and is looking for the real one. Isaac Moritz’s brother finds Alma’s note and calls to speak to her, but Bird intercepts. He learns that the man Alma hopes to find is called Leopold Gursky. He writes a letter to Leo from Alma, asking for a meeting in Central Park.

Leo is surprised to see a new story by his son appear in a literary magazine. He is even more surprised when he begins reading it and discovers that the words are his own. The story is the first pages of Words for Everything, found in the dead author’s home and assumed to be his latest work. Leo thinks that maybe Isaac read the text after all and learned the truth about his parentage.

When Leo receives the letter signed by Alma, he assumes it is his time to die. He believes Alma is the angel coming to take him to the afterlife. Alma also receives a letter, this one signed by Leo Gursky, and the two make their separate ways to Central Park.

As Leo sits on the bench waiting for Alma, he sees his life flash before his eyes. When Alma Singer appears in front of him, he believes it is Alma Mereminski, returned to her teenage years as he remembers her best. At first, Alma is disappointed, seeing only a confused old man. However, gradually each understands who the other is and how they are connected.

The novel ends with the same page that closes The History of Love: the auto-obituary of Leo Gursky.