The History of Love Characters

He's an old man with a bad heart. He's also an expert locksmith—like the Houdini of locksmiths. He's (secretly) the father of a super-famous author. And he's (secretly, in another way) the author...

Alma Singer is your everyday urban teenager—spending her time thinking about boys, searching for mysterious Eastern Europeans who might not actually exist, and keeping a detailed notebook called...

Zvi Litvinoff is sort of a curious case (note: that's not a Benjamin Button reference). Sometimes he seems like the villain—and, really, if you twisted our arms and said this book had to have a v...

Bird is Alma's younger brother. He gets the name "Bird" by jumping off a building, in an attempt to fly. Later, he falls off another roof and sprains his wrist. ("A" for effort there, Bird.)At nine...

Charlotte is Alma's mother, who has been devastated by her husband's untimely death and who remains severely depressed. In the novel, she is the most potent expression of the twisted connections be...

This is Alma's father, as you might suspect by the last name. He's originally from Israel. He finds a copy of The History of Love while traveling in Chile and gives it to Charlotte just a couple of...

Leo's beloved, and Alma's namesake, A.M. (as we like to call her for short) is the person around whom both Leo's and Alma Singer's stories revolve. She was indeed in love with Leo as well, but fled...

Leo introduces Bruno as his best friend, who conveniently lives above him in their apartment building. They were old friends in Poland who randomly (amazingly) ran into each other one day in Manhat...

Uncle Julian is Charlotte Singer's brother, who comes to live with Alma's family for a few weeks while doing research for a book on Alberto Giacometti. He's going through a divorce, and so is yet a...

Zvi Litvinoff's wife, Rosa is much younger than Zvi. She rescues him from his lonely life in Chile, befriending him outside a café. Zvi ends up claiming The History of Love as his own work, at lea...

Misha is originally Alma's pen pal, who moves from Russia to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. He's also Alma's only real friend. Otherwise, Misha likes to play Beatles songs on the accordion (hey, who doe...

Herman is Alma's neighbor and classmate. For most of the novel, we know him only as "an eighth-grade nightmare" (2.33) who spreads nasty rumors about Alma and does the things that we all remember t...