Manhattan
IDelll
(Formerly
Manhattan Bagel)
Nicole Krauss visits Ann Arbor
Friday, June 17, to sign copies of her
acclaimed second novel.
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understands that she's named after
every female character in a Spanish
novel her late father gave to her
mother. Her parents would read to
her from the book, inscribed with
the words that this would have
been the story her father would
have written for her mother had he
been a novelist. Years later, Alma's
mother is hired to translate the
novel into English. Excerpts of it
appear throughout the book.
Masterfully, Krauss ties together
the stories of Gursky and the
young Alma as they search for clues
about The History of Love. For
Gursky, the manuscript oddly reap-
pears, with the names changed into
Spanish. The far-reaching literary
puzzles involve Alma's younger
brother, who has messianic impuls-
es; Gursky's son, a well-known
writer who doesn't know of his
father's existence; Alma's young
friend Misha, an immigrant from
the former Soviet Union who
learns English by memorizing
Beatles songs; and ghosts from
Gursky's past.
Writing Is A Reflex
Krauss' overarching The History of
Love is about loss and the transfor-
mative force of love; it's also play-
ful, wise and funny.
Her highly praised first novel,
Man Walks Into A Room, published
in 2002, is about a man who loses
his memory. That was a daring first
novel, not the more usual coming-
of-age story. Beginning the book
when she was 25, she wrote from
the perspective of a 36-year-old
man. Here she inhabits the voices
of an old man and a 14-year-old
girl, portraying each with convinc-
ing. power.
Memory is still a theme for
Krauss, and, and as she says in an
interview, it's probably one of the
things she'll be writing about as
long as she writes. In The History of
Love, Leo Gursky is overflowing
with memories; in many ways, he
lives in his memories. But he has
no one to share them with.
Krauss has spoken of being really
in love as she wrote this, and how
that feeling is evident on the page.
For her, writing is "a kind of
reflex." She says that her writing
has evolved from the tightly reined-
in prose of her first novel, where
she cared a lot about the sentences,
to greater expansiveness. Gursky's
voice, she explains, "allowed a kind
of openness and honesty felt in the
moment."
Krauss, who began publishing
poetry when she was 19, still writes
beautiful sentences; her pages are
full of energy.
The 30-year-old author, who
lives in Brooklyn, is married to the
novelist Jonathan Safran Foer,
whose second novel, Extremely
Loud and Incredibly Close, is also
recently published. Although sever-
al critics see parallels between their
work she declines to talk about him
in this interview, preferring to keep
their professional lives separate.
Film rights to The History of Love
have been optioned by Warner,
with David Heyman set to produce
and Alfonso Cuaron (known for Y
Tu Mama Tambien) as director. 0
Nicole Krauss will be reading
from and signing copies of
The History of Love 7 p.m.
Friday, June 17, at Borders,
612 E. Liberty, in Ann Arbor.
(734) 668-7652.
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6/16
2005
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