Following the Ghost of Modigliani’s Muse

We featured it here on France Book Tours, and Linda was also part of our webinar on French artists in fiction.

Today, Linda offers us “a brief look at the research and writing process behind her prize-winning novel Loving Modigliani: the Afterlife of Jeanne Hebuterne. a love story, a ghost story, a hunt for a missing masterpiece.”
“Imaginative, brilliantly researched, cross-genre historical fiction.”–Kirkus.

Click on this picture to access Linda’s flaneur guide to the places in her novel, with fascinating pictures and comments:

And now, more details on her book:

Loving Modigliani:
The Afterlife of Jeanne Hébuterne,
by
Linda Lappin

Historical mystery

 Published December 15, 2020
at Serving House Books
Available in many places
(ebook and paperback)

344 pages

Amedeo Modigliani, embittered and unrecognized genius, dies of meningitis on a cold January day in Montparnasse in 1920.
Jeanne Hébuterne, his young wife and muse, follows 48 hours later, falling backwards through a window. Now a ghost, Jeanne drifts about the studio she shared with Modigliani—for she was not only his favorite model, but also an artist whose works were later shut away from public view after her demise.
Enraged, she watches as her belongings are removed from the studio and her identity as an artist seemingly effaced for posterity, carried off in a suitcase by her brother. She then sets off to rejoin Modigliani in the underworld.
Thus begins Loving Modigliani, retelling the story of Jeanne Hébuterne’s fate as a woman and an artist through three timelines and three precious objects stolen from the studio: a notebook, a bangle, and a self-portrait of Jeanne depicted together with Modi and their daughter.
Decades later, an art history student will discover Jeanne’s diary and rescue her artwork from oblivion, after a search leading from Paris to Nice, Rome, and Venice, where Jeanne’s own quest will find its joyful reward.

Check the book trailer!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Prize-winning novelist, poet, translator, and lifelong wanderer
Linda Lappin writes stories rooted in place and memory.
Originally from Tennessee, she has spent much of her life in Rome,
and the landscapes of Italy, France, and Greece have deeply shaped her work.
Her fiction explores women on the edge of transformation,
weaving together history, myth, mystery, and the uncanny
in novels such as The Etruscan, Signatures in Stone, and Loving Modigliani.
Her novel Katherine’s Wish offers an intimate portrait of writer Katherine Mansfield
during the last five years of her life.
Loving Modigliani won the Women’s Fiction category
in the Indie Reader Awards in 2021,
was shortlisted for the Daphne du Maurier Awards,
selected for the Montaigne Medal for distinguished books,
and was the 2024 winner in Historical Fiction for the Indie Author Project.
Her newest novel, Melusine & the Watery Mind, is forthcoming from Serving House Books.

Check her website and subscribe to hear about her upcoming books.
You can also follow her on Instagram.

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TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY
1 kinlde copy (US residents only)

Loving Modigliani:
The Afterlife of Jeanne Hébuterne,
by
Linda Lappin

(historical fiction)

 Published December 15, 2020
at Serving House Books

350 pages

***

On Goodreads

Buy it here:
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Apple / Barnes & Noble

   

Loving Modigliani
won the Women’s Fiction Prize in the Indie Reader Discovery Awards, 2021.
It was shortlisted for the Daphne DuMaurier Award in 2021,
and shortlisted for the Montaigne Medal for Books of Distinction in 2022.
It was a book pick for the Da Vinci Art Alliance Book Club in 2021.

 Giveaway:
1 US/UK participant will receive a paperback copy of this book

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY

SYNOPSIS

In “Katherine’s Wish,” author Linda Lappin delves into the final years of renowned New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield, offering a fictionalized account of her life and the events leading up to her encounter with P.D. Ouspensky and G.I. Gurdjieff.

Lappin meticulously researches Mansfield’s world, crafting a vivid and evocative narrative that transports readers back in time. Drawing from Mansfield’s own journals, letters, and diaries, Lappin weaves together a mosaic of themes and motifs, mirroring Mansfield’s unique writing style.

The novel has garnered praise from Mansfield scholars for its blend of creative storytelling and scholarly accuracy.
Set against a backdrop of Mansfield’s nomadic lifestyle, which takes her from London to the South of France, Italy, Switzerland, and eventually Fontainebleau, searching a cure for her tuberculosis, Lappin explores Mansfield’s relationships with Ida Baker, her companion, and John Middleton Murry, her husband, as well as with writers and intimate friends, Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence.
Incorporating modernist techniques employed by Mansfield and Virginia Woolf, the novel grapples with tragic elements while ultimately celebrating Mansfield’s profound love of life. It conveys a powerful message of joy and fulfillment in the face of adversity.

“Katherine’s Wish” has garnered recognition and acclaim, including being a finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year Award in fiction and winning the IPPY Gold medal in historical fiction.
It has also received honorable mentions from the Hoffer Awards, the Paris Book Festival, and the Next Generation Indie Awards.

“Katherine’s Wish is first and foremost the compelling story of an artist fighting against time. Long after the last page, thoughts of her linger like an exotic scent, as if, anticipating other guests, she simply stepped from the room to display a vase of flowers or a platter’s mounded figs. –Joyce J. Townsend, Rain Taxi

“The more Katherine Mansfield approaches death, the more she comes to life in Linda Lappin’s Katherine’s Wish. Lappin’s achievement is to succeed where medicine failed and, through her words, give Katherine Mansfield ongoing life. ” –Walter Cummins, The Literary Review

A radio play adapted from the book dealing with Mansfield’s friendship with Virginia Woolf
is available on all podcast platforms

 Giveaway:
1 US/UK participant will receive a paperback copy of this book

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY

Linda Lappin
is the prize-winning author of four novels:
The Etruscan (Wynkin deWorde, 2004),
Katherine’s Wish (Wordcraft, 2008),
dealing with the last five years of Katherine Mansfield’s life,
Signatures in Stone: A Bomarzo Mystery (Pleasureboat Studio, 2013),
and Loving Modigliani: The Afterlife of Jeanne Hébuterne (Serving House Books, 2020). Signatures in Stone was the overall winner of the Daphne DuMaurier prize for best mystery novel of 2013.
She is also the author of The Soul of Place: Ideas and Exercises for Conjuring the Genius Loci, (Travelers Tales, 2015), which won a Nautilus Award in the category of creativity in 2015.
A former Fulbright scholar to Italy, she has lived mainly in Rome for over thirty years.
Her website is www.lindalappin.net

Connect with her on Facebook  and Twitter
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Bonjour, we are so thrilled to announce that two books recently featured here on France Book Tours have just won an Indie Reader Discovery Award:

Click on the above to access the website and listen to the acceptance speeches.
Here is the direct link to Lilianne’s, who won 1st prize!

To see more details about each book, click here on their covers:

You can also listen to both authors in conversation in our webinar on “French artists in fiction:
four lives, four authors”