The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Set in contemporary New York, the novel focuses on the lives of two individuals. Leo Gursky is an old Polish Jew living in a shabby flat in Manhattan. Sixty years previously, he lost the love of his life, Alma Mereminsky, when she moved from Poland to New York. When he eventually managed to escape war-ravaged Poland and follow her, it was too late for their relationship, and Leo has never got over this. Alma had a son, Isaac, of whose existence Leo is only too painfully aware, although the son knows nothing of Leo's existence.
Across town, Alma Singer, a teenage girl, worries about her mother Charlotte, a translator who has mourned her dead husband for many years. Alma wants her mother to find love again, and embarks on a project to find her a suitable man, but her mission is sidetracked when a mysterious person contacts her mother to ask her to translate a book which holds happy memories for him. Meanwhile, Alma's younger brother, Emmanuel Chaim 'Bird', leaps off buildings and nurses delusions that he's the new Jewish messiah.