The History of Love
by Nicole Krauss
Penguin, HK$90
In The History of Love, Nicole Krauss proves that, where writing is concerned, she's at least the equal of her husband, Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close). In fact, they're almost too similar in some ways, although that's not a negative. Krauss' affinity for pages with only a few words or sentences on them, for instance, is a literary device the couple seem to agree is effective. Their latest books also overlap thematically, although neither one's novel reads like pastiche. A work about romance and books, and about how that which is lost sometimes can be found again, The History of Love skips and stumbles through histories of people found and looked for. Central characters are former locksmith Leo Gursky, who is determined to be noticed now he's on the last leg of life, and Alma Singer, a teenager trying to rid her mother of loneliness at the same time as she protects her brother, who has a Messiah complex. A mysterious book called The History of Love binds them together. Krauss deserves the accolades heaped on this, her follow-up to 2002's Man Walks into a Room.