Waiting for Hannah - Book Review

Waiting for Hannah
By Dave Clarke
Hologram Publishing 2008
Website
Another Blog Review

This novel is about a painting. The past when the painting was created, and the present when the painting was found. The artist who painted it, was Marc Chagall.

The sitter who sat for it was a young Jewish woman who was destined to do what her father said and marry whom her father chose. She was not allowed to live her own life or make her own decisions. BUT that was the culture in Europe in the early 1900s before the first world war.

Hannah Kessler is the daughter of Jacob Kessler, a rich jewish man who owns and runs an Insurance company. Hannah has been raised to take her fathers place and learn the business of Insurance. She is on ger way to Prague to attend Insurance school. BUT she has dreams of growing and selling flowers. while the specific careers were not named, her dreams did describe a florist and a landscape artist. Hannah's father just kept tekling her that she ciould not make a living selling flowers. NOONE will buy them, he said. Hannah and her father board to train to Prague.

She meets Marc Chagall on thr train to Prague. Marc is a young jewish painter from back east. He is on his way to Paris to study painting.

In prague the two teenegrs meet whenever they can. They are good kids and do not get up to nay hanky panky. The closest they come is when Hannah asks Marc to paint her in the nude and covered with flowers.

Wrapped around this story is a modern day story of Kate McBride who found the painting in the attic of her mothers home, and it is the story of how she tries to find the family of the young girl in the painting.

The painting concerned is most likely not a real painting. (see cover picture)
After all this is a novel. And I cannot find it on any art sides online despite several hours of looking.

I did not see any comparison to the story of the movie Titanic while I was reading it - see blog review link above.

I enjoyed this novel purely for the art and for the fictionalised story of Marc Chagall's early life. I also read this book for the Art History challenge.