Dear Lon,
I wish I could help, as I love the novel (heh-heh) idea..I have married into a wonderful Jewish family, with many passed down, and some still current, tales of history, from escaping the Czar, to later fleeing Europe as Hitler came to power.
As a byway, have you seen the movie, "The Red Violin"? You would probably love it and I think it might be provocative in terms of thinking through a multi generational format, if you think it would work with your concept. It is a story fraught with lust, betrayal, passion, genius, love, (not to mention sloth, gluttony, etc) and every other high emotion you could think of.
Writing a book and looking for a publisher is, I believe, an effort unto itself. One might only hope that there is something equivalent to a "Pens of Genius" website that would assist you. There is a site out there called ipublish.com (?something like this) that offers writers non-traditional ways of marketing work. Look into it as it may make sense, since your initial market of buyers would be pretty easy to target..and I think that proven success makes an entree into other markets much easier.
Nonetheless, it seems that you feel compelled to do this work, and if so, you should.
(If you have not yet read
"Art & Fear" NOW would be a good time to order it from Amazon, I MEAN it.)
When can I expect to see the first draft?
With kindest regards, Chris
P.S. You should be ordering
Art & Fear instead of reading this ps.