Born in Manhattan and grew up in Long Island, Krauss published her first novel, A Man Walks into a Room in 2002. A meditation on memory and personal history, solitude and intimacy, this was acclaimed by the critics and the readers and a finalist at the Los Angeles Times Book Award. Her second book, The History of Love, was published in 2005 and tells the stories of a Holocaust survivor, a lost manuscript and a young woman who has to cope with her father loss. The novel was adapted into a movie, directed in 2016 by  Radu Mihaileanu. In her third book, titled Great House, published in 2010, finalist at the National Book Award and shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2011, Krauss crosses together the stories of four characters liked one to each other through a desk that exerts a power over those who possess it or give it away. Her last book came out in 2017: Forest Dark.