The improbability of love : a novel
Record details
- ISBN: 9781101874158
- ISBN: 1101874155
- ISBN: 1101874147 (hardback)
- ISBN: 9781101874141 (hardback)
- ISBN: 1101874147 : HRD
- ISBN: 9781101874141 : HRD
- ISBN: 9781101874141 (hardback)
- ISBN: 1101874147 (hardback)
-
Physical Description:
407 pages ; 25 cm
print - Publisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Summary, etc.: | "Annie McMorrow, 31 and not recovered from the end of her long-term relationship, is an assistant to film producer Carlo Spinetti and then to his chilling wife Rebecca Winkleman Spinetti whose father started Winkleman Fine Art in Curzon St. Annie has spent her meagre savings on a dusty painting from a junk shop to give to her new, unsuitable, boyfriend who never shows up for his birthday dinner. The painting now hers, talks, but only to us. Shrewd, spoiled, charming, world weary and cynical, he comments perceptively on Annie, and the modern world and tells tales about his previous owners: Louis XV, Voltaire, Catherine the Great among others. The story unfolds through this voice and many others--unexpected, entertaining, and strangely authentic. Annie will have her apartment ransacked and be pursued by dealers, buyers and an auctioneer in an attempt to get back the painting. With The Improbability of Love, Rothschild has spun a dazzling tale--both irreverant and entertainng--of a many-layered, devious world where, in the end, love triumphs"-- |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Single women Fiction Painting Collectors and collecting Fiction Art dealers Fiction Artists Fiction |
Genre: | Fantasy fiction. Romantic suspense fiction. Fantasy fiction. Thrillers (Fiction) Romance fiction. Novels. |
Available copies
- 29 of 32 copies available at Bibliomation. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Rowayton Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 32 total copies.
Other Formats and Editions
Show Only Available Copies
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rowayton Library | F ROT (Text) | 33625134083208 | Adult Fiction | Available | - |
Electronic resources
The Improbability of Love
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Summary
The Improbability of Love
Wickedly funny, this totally engaging, richly observed first novel by Hannah Rothschild is a tour de force. Its sweeping narrative and cast of wildly colorful characters takes you behind the scenes of a London auction house, into the secret operations of a powerful art dealer, to a flamboyant eighteenth-century-style dinner party, and into a modest living room in Berlin, among many other unexpected settings. In The Improbability of Love we meet Annie McDee, thirty-one, who is working as a chef for two rather sinister art dealers. Recovering from the end of a long-term relationship, she is searching in a neglected secondhand shop for a birthday present for her unsuitable new lover. Hidden behind a rubber plant on top of a file cabinet, a grimy painting catches her eye. After spending her meager savings on the picture, Annie prepares an elaborate birthday dinner for two, only to be stood up. The painting becomes hers, and as it turns out, Annie has stumbled across a lost masterpiece by one of the most important French painters of the eighteenth century. But who painted this masterpiece is not clear at first. Soon Annie finds herself pursued by interested parties who would do anything to possess her picture. For a gloomy, exiled Russian oligarch, an avaricious sheikha, a desperate auctioneer, and an unscrupulous dealer, among others, the painting embodies their greatest hopes and fears. In her search for the painting's identity, Annie will unwittingly uncover some of the darkest secrets of European history--as well as the possibility of falling in love again. Irreverent, witty, bittersweet, The Improbability of Love draws an unforgettable portrait of the London art scene, but it is also an exuberant and unexpected journey through life's highs and lows and the complexities of love and loss.