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Long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching
for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's
loneliness.
Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening
to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always
like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo
fell in love and wrote a book. And though Leo doesn't know it, that book
survived, inspiring fabulous circumstances, even love. Fourteen-year-old
Alma was named after a character in that very book. And although she has
her hands full-keeping track of her brother, Bird (who thinks he might be
the Messiah), and taking copious notes on How to Survive in the Wild-she
undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With
consummate, spellbinding skill, Nicole Krauss gradually draws together
their stories.
This extraordinary book was inspired by the author's four grandparents
and by a pantheon of authors whose work is haunted by loss-Bruno Schulz,
Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, and more. It is truly a history of love: a tale
brimming with laughter, irony, passion, and soaring imaginative
power. |
