Loving Frank
Ratings6
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings6
Average rating3.7
I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives. In this ambitious debut novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America's greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney's profound influence on Wright. Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan's Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world. Mamah's is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel's stunning conclusion. Elegantly written and remarkably rich in detail, Loving Frank is a fitting tribute to a courageous woman, a national icon, and their timeless love story.Advance praise for Loving Frank:"Loving Frank is one of those novels that takes over your life. It's mesmerizing and fascinating--filled with complex characters, deep passions, tactile descriptions of astonishing architecture, and the colorful immediacy of daily life a hundred years ago--all gathered into a story that unfolds with riveting urgency."--Lauren Belfer, author of City of Light"This graceful, assured first novel tells the remarkable story of the long-lived affair between Frank Lloyd Wright, a passionate and impossible figure, and Mamah Cheney, a married woman whom Wright beguiled and led beyond the restraint of convention. It is engrossing, provocative reading."--Scott Turow"It takes great courage to write a novel about historical people, and in particular to give voice to someone as mythic as Frank Lloyd Wright. This beautifully written novel about Mamah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright's love affair is vivid and intelligent, unsentimental and compassionate."--Jane Hamilton"I admire this novel, adore this novel, for so many reasons: The intelligence and lyricism of the prose. The attention to period detail. The epic proportions of this most fascinating love story. Mamah Cheney has been in my head and heart and soul since reading this book; I doubt she'll ever leave."--Elizabeth BergFrom the Hardcover edition.
Reviews with the most likes.
This book held my interest and wonder while reading it. For that reason, I want to give it more stars. Yet, it was a disappointment. I think all the rave reviews were uncalled for and that despite its interesting characters this is a very conventional novel with characters I didn't have much respect for. Bad combination.
I liked this book way more than I thought I would when it was described to me as a “romance novel about Frank Lloyd Wright's mistress.” First of all, I wouldn't really say it's a romance novel so much as a novel that involves a romance. It's really more about Mamah's own self-discovery, and it has a lot of interesting historical territory to cover. I didn't know very much about FLW or about this woman, Mamah, who was a minor player in the early feminist movement. Rad.
A fascinating look at a larger than life ego, based on a true story of internationally admired architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. His affair with a feminist back in the early 1900s shocked the nation, as both were married and with children. When they chose to leave their families in order to be together, it affected them in ways they hadn't expected. The ending shocked me; I'm still recovering.
