As a young man in Poland, Leo Gursky fell in love and wrote a novel called The History of Love. Sixty years later, we find him in New York, a locksmith living alone in a small apartment. His novel, meanwhile, has made its way to Chile, where it is published under a different man’s name. Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer is named for a character in the book, but when a stranger asks her mother to translate the novel into English, Alma decides to investigate. One mystery leads to another in Nicole Krauss’s second novel, The History of Love, as love leads to loss and, perhaps, back to love again. Nicole Krauss’ first novel was Man Walks Into a Room; her work has appeared in The Paris Review and The New Yorker.

Recorded Tuesday, May 16, 2006 at Abbey Pub.