In what could be described as the introduction, Ann Michaels brings her wittiness into play and gives the readers a surreal background of the novel, stating the character's history and the idea of lost or hidden memoirs from war heroes. Ann Michaels shows off her fancy language just mere sentences in the beginning of the book. Perhaps she is displaying her poetic abilities through Jakob, who is also a lover of language. So it would …showed first 75 words of 389 total…

…showed last 75 words of 389 total…however, Jakob has discovered his talent as poet and essayist and strives to find in language the meaning of his life. The miraculous gift of a soul mate in his second wife, "voluptuous scholar" Michaela, comes late for Jakob. Their marriage is brief, and ends in stunning irony. From here it is evident the novel is about loss, about the urgency, pain and ultimate healing power of memory, and about the redemptive power of love.