The Improbability of Love

September 21, 2015
Rothschild’s clever follow-up to The Baroness follows brokenhearted Londoner Annie McDee. Her attempts to begin a new life are complicated by a junk-shop painting that, unbeknownst to her, is an 18th-century masterpiece by Antoine Watteau. Rothschild gives the title painting its own point-of-view chapters, admirably managing not to get too cutesy. Having been owned by royalty, the Watteau is initially dismayed by Annie’s lack of funds and poor fashion sense. Annie finds work as a chef for Rebecca Winkleman, the daughter of a prominent art dealer, and yet Annie never shows them the painting, despite talking to other experts. Coincidentally, Rebecca has been tasked by her father, Memling, to find this very same artwork for devious reasons that he doesn’t share. Once Rebecca links Annie with the painting, she suspects her of being a spy. The weakest part of Rothschild’s plot involves would-be love interest Jesse, an innocuous painter/museum guide who is head over heels for Annie and pursues her despite her aloof lack of interest. Despite some plot holes, it’s rewarding to see Rebecca viciously come into her own once she divulges Memling’s dark secret. Additionally, Rothschild packs the narrative with vivid details, especially about art and food. The book is at its best when delving into the lives of the many people affected by the Watteau.

July 1, 2015
Following her biography of a jazz-loving great aunt (The Baroness, 2013), Rothschild shifts gears to imagine art-world shenanigans prompted by a long-lost Watteau painting in her first novel. Readers know the painting's creator and name from the prologue, which opens on the day of The Improbability of Love's highly publicized auction. To show how it got there, Rothschild rolls back the action six months to introduce her engagingly disheveled heroine, Annie, a shellshocked refugee from a failed long-term relationship struggling to find her professional and emotional footing in London. Annie buys the painting on a whim in a junk shop, never dreaming that it's anything important. Jesse, a young painter she meets in a museum, sees genius in this portrait of a man hopelessly gazing at an adored woman, but Annie's more interested in making a good impression at her new gig as chef for icy Rebecca Winkleman and her father, Memling, proprietors of a powerful art dealership. Memling, an Auschwitz survivor with an uncanny knack for bringing high-quality paintings of vague provenance to market, is not what he seems and has a very pressing reason for retrieving the painting now in Annie's possession. Rothschild deftly spins an elaborate web of intrigue involving a raft of sharply drawn secondary characters, including Annie's alcoholic mother and an aging bon vivant who helps rich people spend their money. But the story's emotional center is Annie's quest for recognition-many scrumptious descriptions of meal preparations reveal her as a brilliant cook-and battle-scarred reluctance to realize that sweet Jesse is the man for her. Even the painting gets a few monologues (amusing, though adding little of substance) as the action moves through multiple, often nail-biting plot twists-yes, there are a few convenient coincidences, put across by the fast pace and vivid prose-toward a slightly hasty but nonetheless satisfying resolution. Smart, well-written, and thoroughly gripping.

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Starred review from July 1, 2015

The painting speaks! It also thinks, feels, complains, and narrates its own story--one that began 300 years ago when an unheralded Antoine Watteau created an homage to his unrequited love, which he called The Improbability of Love. Along the way, it passed through the hands of emperors, popes, and kings before finding its way to Germany into the home of a Jewish family shortly before they were sent to Auschwitz. The story picks up again when a young chef, in search of a birthday gift for a would-be boyfriend, wanders into a London junk shop, stumbles upon a dusty painting that catches her eye, and purchases it impulsively. Although her date stands her up, the picture takes on a life of its own, attracting interest from art experts and acquisitive buyers. It isn't long before it is recognized as the masterwork that launched the rococo art movement and ends up on the auction block before an assemblage of prize-seeking glitterati. VERDICT For readers anticipating the next irresistible blend of art, mystery, and intrigue along the lines of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, the wait is over. This compulsively readable, immensely enjoyable novel will deeply satisfy that craving.--Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2015
After writing about her fascinating great-aunt in The Baroness: The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild (2013), Rothschild delivers her first novel, a capacious and fluently knowledgeable tale that excoriates with mischievously satirical intent the viciously competitive world of high-stakes art collecting. The fact that art, the embodiment of beauty and humankind's highest aspirations, arouses villainy of appalling dimensions is a paradox Rothschild roundly threshes, along with the persistent denigration of women and the moral morass cracked open in war. But these dark matters are wrapped within the captivating story of Annie McDee, a young woman of small means and boundless passion for history and food, trying to mend a blasted heart, cope with her alcoholic mother, and succeed in London as a chef. When she purchases a grimy yet seductive old painting in a junk shop, she innocently sets off an art-world and geopolitical cataclysm. Though the storytelling machinery creaks a bit, Rothschild, the first woman to chair London's National Gallery, is a dazzling omniscient narrator giving voice to an irresistible cast of reprobates and heroes, from a secret Nazi to campy and conniving art-world players, Annie's persistent suitor, and the 300-year-old, long-lost masterpiece itself. An opulently detailed, suspensefully plotted, shrewdly witty novel of decadence, crimes ordinary and genocidal, and improbable love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)