More Gabrielle Petit

I finished the book by David Van Reybrouck I mentioned earlier: Slagschaduw. It's been a long time since I finished a book in less than three days. It was really catching. When I said it's a historical novel, I wasn't really right. It's a contemporary love story about a young journalist trying to overcome his love sickness over a girl who was the model in the sculpture classes he took. They had a relationship for 18 months. Struggling to get over her (and over de death of a friend a few years earlier) he decides to investigate the life the woman who modelled for the Gabrielle Petit sculpture in Brussels in the early 1920s. To save her (and himself) from oblivion. Interesting historical details are interwoven with suspenseful love scenes and sad reminiscences about his deceased friend (a press photographer). The book seems autobiographical. But maybe that's only what the reader's supposed to think.

The sculpture on the place St. Jean is made by Egide Rombaux (1865-1942). He also made the statues for Edith Cavell and Cardinal Mercier, both World War One heroes, in Brussels.