The Improbability of Love: SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016

by Hannah Rothschild

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016

WINNER OF THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION 2016

A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK

Annie McDee, alone after the disintegration of her long-term relationship and trapped in a dead-end job, is searching for a present for her unsuitable lover in a neglected second-hand shop. Within the jumble of junk and tack, a grimy painting catches her eye. Leaving the store with the picture after spending her meagre savings, she prepares an elaborate dinner for two, only to be stood up, the gift gathering dust on her mantelpiece.

But every painting has a story – and if it could speak, what would it tell us?

For Annie has stumbled across ‘The Improbability of Love’, a lost masterpiece by Antoine Watteau, one of the most influential French painters of the eighteenth century. Soon Annie is drawn unwillingly into the art world, and finds herself pursued by a host of interested parties that would do anything to possess her picture. For an exiled Russian oligarch, an avaricious Sheika, a desperate auctioneer, an unscrupulous dealer and several others, the painting symbolises their greatest hopes and fears. In her search for the painting's true identity, Annie will uncover the darkest secrets of European history – and in doing so, she will learn more about herself, opening up to the possibility of falling in love again.

Irreverent, witty and sharply sweet, The Improbability of Love explores the confusion and turmoil of life and the complexities of love, loss and hurt – revealing the lows to which human nature can stoop and the heights to which the soul can soar.

• ISBN10: 1408862441
• ISBN13: 9781408862445
• Publish Date: 21 May 2015
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 29 April 2016
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

Best character in a novel ever:  The painting in The Improbability of Love   

A woman finds a long-missing, seminal but lesser-known work of art in a thrift shop and buys it without having any idea of the chaos that will unfold as a result of this small canvas.   

I loved this book.  Told in the third person, we follow the lives of several people who live and breathe art, the painting itself, and Annie, an almost thoroughly broken human being that in spite of everything just keeps plugging along, wanting nothing more than to cook fantastical feasts.   As the painting itself says: 

"Let me guess what you are thinking.  Girl finds picture; picture turns out to be worth a fortune.  Girl (finally) finds boy with a heart. Girl sells picture, makes millions, marries boy, all live happily ever after.   Piss off.  Yes, you heard me, piss off...   Life is not that simple."   

Neither is this book.  It's a twisty tale and ended up in places I didn't expect, and it was wonderful.  The author had me fascinated from one moment to the next.  People I felt sorry for at the start, I hated at the end, and people I thought were awful I sympathised with as the book progressed.  Not everybody got the ending I'd have chosen for them, but all in all I was satisfied as I turned the last page.   

I could nit-pick a few things: information I'd have liked to have, or characters that fall off the radar, or the ever-present copyediting errors, but really, I loved this book.  I hated putting it down and I couldn't wait to pick it back up.  Just looking at it makes me smile and that's what a 5 star read should do.  I'll likely forget about most of the characters with time, but the painting, he is a character I'll never forget.