Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut¹ novel, Everything Is Illuminated². Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe³, he confronts the traumas⁴ of our recent history. What he discovers is solace⁵ in that most human quality, imagination.

Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine⁶ player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist, correspondent with Stephen Hawking⁷ and Ringo Starr. He is nine years old. And he is on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs⁸ of New York. His mission is to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

An inspired innocent, Oskar is alternately endearing, exasperating⁹, and hilarious¹⁰ as he careens from Central Park to Coney Island to Harlem on his search. Along the way he is always dreaming up inventions to keep those he loves safe from harm. What about a birdseed shirt to let you fly away? What if you could actually hear everyone's heartbeat? His goal is hopeful, but the past speaks a loud warning in stories of those who've lost loved ones before. As Oskar roams New York, he encounters a motley assortment¹¹ of humanity who are all survivors¹² in their own way. He befriends a 103-year-old war reporter, a tour guide who never leaves the Empire State Building, and lovers enraptured¹³ or scorned.

Ultimately, Oskar ends his journey where it began, at his father's grave. But now he is accompanied by the silent stranger who has been renting the spare room of his grandmother's apartment. They are there to dig up his father's empty coffin¹⁴.