Linda Lappin beautifully opens the world of Jeanne Hebuterne in Loving Modigliani.
Jeanne was an artist, the common law wife of painter Amedeo Modigliani and the mother of his child. Tragically, twenty four hours after Modigliani’s death from meningitis she commits suicide by falling backwards from a upper floor window, killing herself and unborn child.
The ghost of Jeanne haunts the studio she shared with Modi. Her art and her identity as an artist vanished soon after her death. Her story is shared through several timelines and several treasured objects taken from the studio, a bangle, a portrait of Jeanne, Modigliani, their child and a diary.
With each page the reader is enveloped in the excitement and color of the Parisian art world and the struggles of those that created incredible works of art. Lappin’s prose paint a detailed portrait of the life of the talented but sadly tragic life of Jeanne Hebuterne. Part history, mystery, biography, this novel Is a page turner that has it all.
Thank you NetGalley, Serving House Books and Linda Lappin for this highly enjoyable and recommended novel.

Thank you NetGalley and Serving House Books for sending me a copy of this novel to review.
Most people have heard of the artist, Amedeo Modigliani, but how many are aware of his model and long-term mistress/possibly wife, Jeanne Hébuterne, who was an artist in her own right. In Linda Lappin’s hands, her life and her after-life, are the subject of this unusual and tightly-plotted novel.
The novel starts in 1920, with the death of Jeanne Hébuterne. Most accounts of her life mention that she committed suicide after the death of her lover. In Lappin’s version, after a row with her brother, André, she falls from the window of his house on the fourth floor. Strangely enough the body is left covered with a sheet till the next morning when it is carried in a wheelbarrow to Modigliani’s studio for its final disposal. Lappin conveys in a vivid and compelling manner the hustle and the bustle of early morning Paris with the aroma of freshly baked bread and coffee emanating from cafes.
Then follows an interesting after-life section when Jeanne is determined to find Modigliani. This section, though imaginative and very readable, seems to be needlessly drawn out till the story moves to 1981 where we are introduced to a young art student who is spending a year in Paris to write a thesis on Manuel Ortiz de Zarate who lived in the same building as Modigliani. As part of her research, she meets Annie Rosier who was a maid with Ortiz family and who convinces her to make Jeanne the subject of her research.

Annie presents her with Jeanne’s diaries, through which we learn about her intense relationship with Modigliani, her family’s disapproval of this relationship, Modigliani’s affairs with his models, his philandering ways, the birth of their daughter, her second pregnancy and Modigliani’s death.
The story moves several years further to 2021 where an American lady, Dotoressa Cuomo, is curating an exhibition of the work of Jeanne Hébuterne for the Raphael Foundation of Venice. Jeanne has finally got her place in the art world and a single sketch has been auctioned for 60,000 euros
The novel is a love story between Jeanne and Modigliani, a ghost story with the narration of Jeanne’s after-life and a mystery story about a missing painting. Lappin keeps the reader’s interest throughout the novel and, it is in the final section that Lappin brings together very skillfully all the various threads to a mysterious conclusion.