Another review I read wondered about the message of what makes a better parent - the present, but emotionally bereft one, or the absent one living a full life. I didn't think Mamah was either. Her life was full once she left, but only full of her and I don't think the children benefited from it. And definitely not in the long run! How gruesome. I'm glad I did some reading up on Mamah before I reached the end of the novel, so at least I knew it was coming.
The writing itself was quite solid for the most part. The romantic dialogue, however, was just painful, as were any of the "mushier" passages, whether it was Mamah reflecting on Frank or the last part where he reflected on her. It took away from what was quite interesting otherwise.
I don't remember any of this getting mentioned, so it's interesting that the social niceties still must be observed in that little town, even after all these years.
View 2 comments. They began their affair when Mamah and her then husband Edwin Cheney commissioned Wright to build their Oak Park home. Their attraction was immediate and continued until Mamah became pregnant with a daughter. Not too long after her daughter was born, they commenced their clandestine affair. Eventually they moved to Europe, each leaving behind families and lived in Europe for 2 years. Mamah sought to find her true self, her own calling in the world, marked by choices that reshape her as a person.
Wright is commissioned to build a portfolio which he works on diligently. They both long for their children but feel that they are deeply in love and cannot leave each other.
The story was well written and told about this woman in Wright's life who deeply impacted him and his work. She is usually ignored in the biographies of Wright. When they move to Wisconsin and build their home there is always the press seeking them out while they strive for privacy. Eventually Edwin gives Mamah a divorce and allows the children to visit in summer.
Wright visits his children rarely in Oak Park although his oldest son is now working with him. The end of the story is tragic and unpredictable.
I would highly recommend this book and will look forward to more books from this author. Jun 19, Schmacko rated it liked it. I read Nancy Horan's debut book, because in a few days I will be up in Wisconsin very near some of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous works.
This relationship broke up two marriages and filled papers with scandal, as the couple ran away to Europe and then came to build their famous home, Taliesin, in Wisconsin. Some books, I can concede are perfectly well-writte I read Nancy Horan's debut book, because in a few days I will be up in Wisconsin very near some of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous works.
Some books, I can concede are perfectly well-written books, and yet I still am not their target audience. I felt I had a good book I was not built to enjoy. Loving Frank does deftly weave facts about FLW's and Mameh Borthwick's culture and history in the late s and early s. Horan formulates a clear feeling for their post-Victorian lives in Oak Park, Illinois. There is also a strong sense that many of the letters, newspaper articles, and correspondence are based in truth, if not verbatim.
Horan is also fairly deft at describing the ideas or concepts of Wright's design. Though, admittedly, Horan is better at the metaphor than she is at the practical description of his buildings.
I found myself looking up pictures online to understand what Horan meant by her poetic turns of structural phrase. Also, Wright's full history and affect on American architecture are only scattered piecemeal throughout the book, requiring the reader to formulate a biographical timeline that doesn't exist in the book. Perhaps the best part of the book is that Loving Frank helps the reader ponder important questions of about feminism, marriage, and self-destiny.
So, why was I frustrated reading this book? Much of the book is framed as an angst-riddled romantic novel. Wright and Borthwick spend so many pages wallowing in their lovelorn conundrums that the emotions start to feel like a second-rate Wuthering Heights. Also, Horan has a journalism background, and yet she is not concise or to-the-point. Loving Frank is fairly indirect and long-winded. It is as if the larger picture of this famous relationship got lost in reporting on the minutiae — every telegraph and newspaper article.
Many chapters blather on as some variation of the chapters before; nothing new is raised, or if it is, it ends up being inconsequential to the whole story. Many people would love this book. They would find such tangential and thorough emotional writing a joy to explore. They would sink themselves into such a book, reveling in the details, feeling as if they really got to know everything about these two interesting historical figures. I found myself digging for new information, new insight, data outside of the drippy emotions.
These things I longed for are buried somewhere deep in there, in between the long bouts of romance and long paragraphs of navel-gazing reflection and guilt-riddled self-flagellation, on a few of the pages of this chapter, page book.
I could have just done without the bodice-ripping sections. View all 6 comments. May 14, Vonia rated it really liked it Shelves: psychology , death-grieving , biographical-fiction , art-world , adultery , debut-novel , marriage , architecture , all-time-favorites , murder-crime.
This is the perfect example of a well done historical novel Not to mention an experience thoroughly appreciate what made this ingenious man. I have long been interested in Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture. I discovered this book while perusing the library for other biographies of my favorite architect the nonfiction sort. It was quite a pleasant detour. An immersive endeavor to fully understand his pers This is the perfect example of a well done historical novel An immersive endeavor to fully understand his personal life.
Although I realize this is still considered fiction, cross-referencing indicates it was based on facts. I have no qualms seeing this as what actually occurred during his affair s and career up and downs, until his death. Great story with a shocking ending. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in architecture and design. Or merely a well-written great story.
Oct 29, Karen rated it it was ok. I think the main characters are pompous, pretentious, and the "love" story overwrought and pointless. This wouldn't be such a bad thing if the author treated the characters as if she knew this was how they appeared, but she seemed to be taking the whole thing very seriously. And since most of the book is fabricated, I can't help but blame the author for turning a grown-up affair into some kind of adolescent "meeting of the minds", "my one true love and soulmate" experience.
Call me unromantic, but there is no "feminist" excuse for a grown woman to leave her very young kids to have a more fulfilling life as some architect's soulmate and to be a translator for a bitter Swedish spinster.
I'm not sure, in the end, if the writer was trying to make this romance appear as ridiculous as it turned out, or if she thought this was a truly moving story. I really was not moved. I had no sympathy for any of the characters, except the husband, wife and children that the adulterers deserted.
The book sort of redeemed itself later, once Mahmah finally called Wright out for being an egotistical jackass. I breathed a sigh of relief and didn't have a problem finishing it.
The ending was good and the only really interesting part of the book. I can think of so many better ways this story could have been written. For example, why not make it about how difficult it was for a woman to get a divorce and still have access to her children? What about writing in some of Wright's wife's perspective, which I'm sure would have been more dramatic?
What about focusing on the ending, which was a story in itself? I will say that I tend to dislike books with a lot of descriptive narrative. This one has a lot, and I'm sure that is part of why I disliked it. Oct 10, Elizabeth of Silver's Reviews rated it it was amazing. I only knew of his talents as an architect. She may have re-thought her decision the last time she went to visit her children since they almost totally ignored her and were just being polite, but it was too late.
Shelves: bio , hf , text-checked , feminism , arts , usa , kirkus. If you do no know how the affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick ends up - well then you absolutely must read this book. That is assuming you are inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture and design.
I was in the blue. I had no idea what happened. Think if I hadn't read this book! So if you are like me and do not now how all was resolved - read this book.
The writing is good. There are many lines I underlined to copy and add here as quotes, but then I got too lazy. What is most remarkable about this book is the ability of the writer to show how all those affected by the love affair felt. By the end of the book you come to understand why each of them made the decisions they made.
Even Elisabeth Wright. I think the fairness with which the author portrayed all points of view was remarkable. Each character's emotion - hurt, betrayal and love are all felt by the reader. I kept changing my mind not knowing who to support. This shows that the author made me understand each one's point of view.
You learn a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright. His personality, both his faults and his talents. Such knowledge is rarely imparted as well in a strict biography filled with dates and names and facts.
I greatly admire Mamah. It is spooky how close I came to NOT reading this book. I suggest you read it. When you finish the book you understand each person and what they have gone through. Through page Loving Frank is an engaging book. What is most outstanding is that the author captures the lovers' euphoria and then also their pain and grief. Bit by bit you understand the emotions of each member of the two families.
Some lines of the writing are beautiful. What do you think of this? She remembered being a child herself, lolling luxuriously in a bathtub at the age of eight and contemplating the vastness of the summer ahead. And it had turned out to be that - a millenium, it seemed, of fireflies and kick the can, of nights and days strung together by long pulsing cricket songs.
The spouses, the children and the lovers are depicted in such a manner that you understand what each one is going through as the relationship begins and progresses.
The relationship and the people change, Small idiosyncrasies about Frank are revealed. You learn of his strengths and his weaknesses. You learn about his family and his relationship with his sister and his mother. I still cannot judge! There are many aspects to consider: "Can one week negate who you have been to your children for the whole of their lives? What is not forgotten remains. It is a kernel that never disappears. You said that once to me. You said, 'They will know. Your own unhappiness will plant the seeds of unhappiness in your children.
And they will blame you for it someday. And do you know what it did to them after awhile? It actually made them tougher. I've told you what my family motto is: 'Truth against the world. However, I just don't think this motto supports Frank and Mamah's relationship! I simply find this a false way of supporting the lovers' choices. What Frank says is that they supposedly will be stronger by fighting the disapproval thrown at them. Maybe, but still they are satisfying their own desires and hurting others at the same time!
I think he is kind of twisting things. Hopefully their children can be made stronger by what their parents have heaped on to them. I am not worried about Frank and Mamah; it is the others that worry me. You make choices and than you better be willing to accept the results. The behavior that bothers me the most is how they run from solving the problem rather than confronting it. Now they are leaving Germany to hide in some other European city.
My main point is - there is a lot to think about. No reader can read this and not draw their own conclusions. We might all draw different conclusions, but certainly we will all be thinking and evaluating what each of us might do in these circumstances.
Through page I am fuming. Both of them married, both having children, both having loving spouses that wanted them back. The sad part is not the mess they created for themselves, but the grief that came pounding down on others. Even in the early s the journalist made big news of such scandals. So what do I do? I immediately go to the back of the book and check if there is an author's note that explains what is real and what is fiction.
There is a very clear explanation. I would have been very disappointed otherwise. The author has stuck to all the known facts and only filled in the holes. She has numerous letters between Mamah and the Swedish writer Ellen Key.
This analyses the women characters that make up Ibsen's writing. Keep in mind Ibsen's A Doll's House where the main character leaves her husband rather than be as a "doll" in their perfect home.
These letters shed light on Mamah's relationship with Frank. I have not made any judgment concerning if what they did was right or wrong, not yet at least,but they certainly should have thought about how best to lessen their families' inevitable grief. Through page I feel like crying for these people. If you have read just a teeny bit about this book you know that Frank Lloyd Wright had an affair with Mamah Cheney.
She leaves her children to be with him. Now I thought I wouldn't enjoy reading about this. I thought I couldn't understand how she could leave her children and cheat on her husband. I thought, but I was so wrong. I cry for all four adults, and I cry for the children.
The author is making eachone's decisions so real that you truly understand how this could happen. The lines are sad and moving and funny! Mamah, which is pronounced May-mah, speaks of herself as a twelve-year-old: "Oh, I was just the right age then, I think. Smarter than I ever was before of since. There were no grays. I worshiped my father. I loved my dog. I adored reading. We are ourselves what we appreciate and no more.
She had always thought herself a deeply moral person. Not a prude, by any stretch, but someone decent. She would no more underline in a library book than allow the butcher to return too much change. How had she come to a point where she could so easily tell herself that adultery with a friend's husband was all right? Somehow actions which first hit me as simply deplorable are now tragic. Furthermore, I am learning about Frank Lloyd Wright.
I have always loved His architecture and interior design. Think to be able to start fresh. Think to throw out all the clutter. On the other hand, I don't agree completely. There are some decorative pieces I could never bring myself to abandon. How can one abandon everything? No, I don't agree completely. Mamah was like me. She had a house designed by Frank, but she knew she could not completely erase herself. View all 55 comments. Feb 03, Rebecca rated it really liked it Shelves: reviewed-for-blog , historical-fiction.
The novel covers roughly the next seven years of their lives, and is particularly illuminating about relationships, the rights of women and the morality code of the time. He seemed to fill whatever space he occupied with a pulsing energy that was spiritual, sexual, and intellectual all at once.
Beside Mamah, Catherine Wright was held up as a paragon of fidelity, waiting patiently for Frank to come back to her and their seven children. Mamah was torn between her love for her children and her commitment to a fulfilling relationship with Frank, and when they returned to the States and settled at Taliesin, the home Wright designed in the Wisconsin countryside, she tried to have it all.
Meanwhile, she was a bluestocking who knew several languages and was devoted to making the work of Ellen Key, a Swedish philosopher who believed in free love, available in America. At times I felt Horan got a bit bogged down in chronology, as if she was so determined to stick to the historical record that she gives every detail when she might just have skimmed over events with broad strokes — giving pages of fairly small print. When I was about three-quarters of the way through the book, I stumbled onto two clues that nearly gave away how their affair would end.
Luckily, I was still in the dark enough that the end of the book came as a shocker. I take in a dose of culture and time with friends, then I retreat and go live on it for a while until I get thirsty again. It makes you different. We plan dinner parties and make flowers out of crepe paper. Too many of us make small lives for ourselves. Four years earlier, in , 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. 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.
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. Mamah Cheney sidled up to the Studebaker and put her hand sideways on the crank. Leave your thumb out. Still nothing. A few teasing snowflakes floated under her hat rim and onto her face. She studied the sky, then set out from her house on foot toward the library.
It was a bitterly cold end-of-March day, and Chicago Avenue was a river of frozen slush. Mamah navigated her way through steaming horse droppings, the hem of her black coat lifted high. Three blocks west, at Oak Park Avenue, she leaped onto the wooden sidewalk and hurried south as the wet Despite having "bodice-ripping" potential, Loving Frank is most firmly a novel grounded in research, not a 'romance'.
Of course, the love affair between Mamah and Frank is central to the story, but Loving Frank is first and foremost the story of Mamah's life, and although the relationship between her and Frank is interesting, it is the exploration of her character and the period details that impact her life that keep the reader enthralled, as she struggles to reconcile her need to be with Frank, her need to be with her children and perhaps most powerful of all, her need to discover who she is herself Full Review words.
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today. Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team. Write your own review! A pictorial tour through the life and works of Frank Lloyd Wright including buildings and people mentioned in Loving Frank and to throw you off the scent a few that aren't! All links open in new windows so close the window to return to this ezine The Lloyd Wright's home, and Frank's studio in Oak Park, Illinois.
The Robie House , considered by many to be the finest example of Wright's Prairie architecture. A photo of Mamah Borthwick This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time.
Join today for full access. Courting Mr. 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. It is engrossing, provocative reading. The attention to period detail. The epic proportions of this most fascinating love story.
About The Author. Nancy Horan, a former journalist and longtime resident of Oak Park, Illinois, now lives and writes on an island in Puget Sound. Title: Loving Frank: A Novel. Format: Paperback. Product dimensions: pages, 8 X 5. Shipping dimensions: pages, 8 X 5. Published: April 8, Publisher: Random House Publishing Group. Language: English. Appropriate for ages: All ages.
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