<P> One day, her mother receives a letter from a mysterious man named Jacob Marcus who requests that she translate The History of Love from Spanish to English for $100,000, to be paid in increments of $25,000 as the work progresses . Alma's mother finds the sum suspicious, but the stranger confesses that his mother used to read the book to him when he was a child, so it has a great sentimental value . Alma sees this as an opportunity to help her mother recover from her depression and changes her mother's straightforward letters to Jacob Marcus into more romantic versions . When the letters stop before her mother completes the translation of the book, Alma decides to find the mysterious client . </P> <P> She starts by noting down what she knows about Jacob Marcus in her diary, and concludes that the Alma in the book was real and proceeds to find her . She struggles in her search for Alma Mereminski, but succeeds when she realizes that Alma could have married and finds her under the name of Moritz . She is disappointed to hear that Alma has been dead for five years . However, she finds out that Isaac Moritz is the first of Alma's sons and a famous writer . When she starts reading his bestselling book, she finds that the main character's name is Jacob Marcus and realizes that Isaac Moritz had hired her mother to translate the book . Isaac is dead, however, which explains why his letters had stopped coming to their home . To be sure about her suspicions, Alma leaves a note on Isaac's door asking who the writer of the novel is . </P> <P> In the meanwhile, Bird finds Alma's diary and misinterprets the names Alma Mereminski and Alma Moritz as being his sister's real names, and believes they had different fathers . Isaac's brother calls Alma, after reading the note and the original manuscript of the book, to tell her that Gursky is the real author, but Bird answers the telephone and it confuses him even further . He now suspects that Leopold Gursky is Alma's real father . To cleanse his sin of bragging and to regain the status as one of the chosen ones, he decides to set up a meeting with Alma and Gursky, thus doing a good deed without anybody knowing except God . </P> <P> When the two receive the letter regarding their meeting, both are confused: Alma tries to discover which of the people she met during her searches could have sent her the note, while Leo comes to believe it was Alma who sent him the note, despite her being dead . </P>

Summary of the history of love by nicole krauss