Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
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Back cover:
In a vase in a closet, a couple of years after his father died in 9/11, nine-year-old Oskar discovers a key. The key belonged to his father, he's sure of that. But which of New York's 162 million locks does it open? So begins a quest that takes Oskar - inventor, letter-writer and amateur detective - across New York's five boroughs and into the jumbled lives of friends, relatives and complete strangers. He gets heavy boots, he gives himself little bruises and he inches ever nearer to the heart of a family mystery that stretches back fifty years. But will it take him any closer to, or even further from, his lost father?
In a vase in a closet, a couple of years after his father died in 9/11, nine-year-old Oskar discovers a key. The key belonged to his father, he's sure of that. But which of New York's 162 million locks does it open? So begins a quest that takes Oskar - inventor, letter-writer and amateur detective - across New York's five boroughs and into the jumbled lives of friends, relatives and complete strangers. He gets heavy boots, he gives himself little bruises and he inches ever nearer to the heart of a family mystery that stretches back fifty years. But will it take him any closer to, or even further from, his lost father?
This is an intelligent, innovative, poignant story of a child, lost in the space between a father who died when the Twin Towers fell and a mother whose grief seems to have evaporated with the arrival of her new lover. Oskar, old beyond his years, surrounds himself with other lost souls and tries to include them in his search for the truth, revealing truths about their realities along the way.
I loved this book, although I can't explain why. It is enigmatic, confusing, sad, funny, and not really about 9/11 at all. It reminds me of 'The History of Love', written by Jonathan Safran Foer's wife, Nicole Krauss. Both of them are books I long to share, but don't want to lose. Beautiful.
I loved this book, although I can't explain why. It is enigmatic, confusing, sad, funny, and not really about 9/11 at all. It reminds me of 'The History of Love', written by Jonathan Safran Foer's wife, Nicole Krauss. Both of them are books I long to share, but don't want to lose. Beautiful.