On March 6, 1945, after hearing rumors that his son, John, was writing a book about their stormy past, Frank Lloyd Wright wrote a note asking him, "What is this talk of a book? Of all that I don’t need and dread is more exploitation. Can’t you drop it?"
John assured his father that he would like the book and sent him a copy on its publication—March 29, 1946. A few days later, Frank Lloyd Wright returned it with numerous comments penciled in the margin, responding to what his son had written, and with a request that a new, second copy be sent to him. John complied with the request but first transcribed not only all his father’s comments into the clean copy in black pencil but also his own answers to them in red pencil. He also transcribed all these comments into a third copy, again using colors to differentiate his comments from those of his father. This third copy is the basis for this new edition of John Lloyd Wright’s book.
The main text of this volume is a reprint of the 1946 edition along with marginal notes, comments, and corrections made by John Lloyd Wright and his father, as well as explanatory notes and an introduction by Narciso G. Menocal.
In the postscript, Elizabeth Wright Ingraham, John Lloyd Wright’s daughter, remembering her grandfather and father, says that in this edition "what was a son’s book becomes a father and son book."
