{"id":2492,"date":"2017-01-25T20:21:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T14:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fableandi.com\/?p=2492"},"modified":"2022-03-30T21:24:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T15:54:51","slug":"five-reasons-pick-improbability-love-hannah-rothschild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebooksatchel.com\/five-reasons-pick-improbability-love-hannah-rothschild\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Reasons to Pick up The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild"},"content":{"rendered":"
When Annie McDee comes in possession of a painting bought from a junk shop, little does she know that the elite circle of London\u2019s art world is trying to track it down. Set in contemporary London, The Improbability of Love<\/em> by Hannah Rothschild was a worthy contender in the\u00a0 shortlist for Bailey\u2019s Prize, 2016<\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Annie is an aspiring chef in her thirties who leads a lonely isolated life after a love-failure. She admits \u201cIf I died here in my studio flat on a Friday night, no one would notice until my employer wanted a restaurant booked or his dry cleaning collected<\/em>.\u201d When she buys a painting from a junk shop to gift a man after their first date, she has no idea she is in for another heart break. The painting lies forgotten in her house until her alcoholic mother, Evie moves in and starts obsessing over it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Annie finds a job as a lowly chef under Rebecca Winkleman, daughter of Mr. Memling Winkleman \u2013 a 90 year old international art dealer who rules London\u2019s art world. She is not aware\u00a0that Mr. Winkleman is in search of the same canvas that is in her possession. Rebecca, who has no idea why the painting means so much to her father, tries to help him and in the process of tracking it discovers ugly truths about the art world and her family.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As Annie is pulled into this unscrupulous art world consisting of exiled Russian aristocrats, ambitious Sheikhas, lower end art dealers, collectors, high society ladies, intellectuals, academics and exhibition organisers, she finds herself in unfamiliar terrain for someone who just wants to cook. And perhaps this might persuade her to believe in love again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here are some highlights about The Improbability of Love<\/em> : <\/p>\n 2. The Painting <\/p>\nIn Brief<\/h3>\n
\n1. Characters
\nThe Improbability of Love has a colourful cast of characters. There is an exiled \u00a0Russian billionaire named Vlad; an American socialite named Melanie Appledore; the aging cross dressing fixer named Barty (I loved his character. The wigs he adorns for every party and conversations with the ladies on botox are hilarious) who works with exiled rich men to set up a new home in London and establish themselves in a new society, Earl Beachendon, a director at Monachorum, who is at the risk of being fired unless he catches hold of a masterpiece and Jesse, a struggling artist. The secondary characters are well crafted and add to the outrageousness of the art world.<\/p>\n
\nI think the painting is my favourite character in the story. I loved to read the its POV even though it is fictional while the painter it is attributed to (Watteau) is real. The painting is a cheeky thing indeed. I found the crass talk amusing, completely contrary to the classy, elegant speech that I was expecting from a highly valued painting. It is obnoxious (\u201cAs we all know a fierce female mind is a passion killer. Men prefer the breast to the brain<\/em>\u201d), proud (\u201cI was a painting that started a movement, the rococo<\/em>\u201d) and unbelievingly human at heart.<\/p>\n