About the Book

Foer’s wildly lauded, but controversial novel tells the story of young Oskar Schell’s hilarious and heartbreaking search to make sense of the death of his father in the World Trade Center on 9/11. One year after his father’s death, grief stricken, but undaunted, the nine-year-old boy sets out on an odyssey across the five boroughs of New York City in search of the owner of a mysterious key found in his father’s closet.

It’s not often a reader encounters a character quite like Oskar. He is engaging, endearing, exasperating, precocious, irritating and highly imaginative, as well as a sweetly suffering little boy who remembers his father as only a lonely child can. Along the way Oskar meets an assortment of New York City characters that show him compassion and encouragement. Oskar’s story is not about 9/11 itself; it’s about the consequences of that terrible terrorist act on those who survived. It is also a reflection of history repeating itself, as seen through the parallel suffering of Oskar’s grandparents, who survived the firebombing of Dresden during World War ll. 

Foer incorporates interconnecting storylines, photographs, drawings and a 14-page flip book to tell the story. While the 9/11 tragedy is the backdrop of this story, its universal theme is war and its inevitable feeling of loss, pain and suffering. Foer captures this theme with a writing style that is compassionate, while at the same time humorous.