Loving Frank: A Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Ellen Key, Oak Park, Spring Green (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Significant Seven, August 2007: It's a rare treasure to find a historically imagined novel that is at once fully versed in the facts and unafraid of weaving those truths into a story that dares to explore the unanswered questions. Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney's love story is--as many early reviews of Loving Frank have noted--little-known and often dismissed as scandal. In Nancy Horan's skillful hands, however, what you get is two fully realized people, entirely, irrepressibly, in love. Together, Frank and Mamah are a wholly modern portrait, and while you can easily imagine them in the here and now, it's their presence in the world of early 20th century America that shades how authentic and, ultimately, tragic their story is. Mamah's bright, earnest spirit is particularly tender in the context of her time and place, which afforded her little opportunity to realize the intellectual life for which she yearned. Loving Frank is a remarkable literary achievement, tenderly acute and even-handed in even the most heartbreaking moments, and an auspicious debut from a writer to watch. --Anne Bartholomew

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Horan's ambitious first novel is a fictionalization of the life of Mamah Borthwick Cheney, best known as the woman who wrecked Frank Lloyd Wright's first marriage. Despite the title, this is not a romance, but a portrayal of an independent, educated woman at odds with the restrictions of the early 20th century. Frank and Mamah, both married and with children, met when Mamah's husband, Edwin, commissioned Frank to design a house. Their affair became the stuff of headlines when they left their families to live and travel together, going first to Germany, where Mamah found rewarding work doing scholarly translations of Swedish feminist Ellen Key's books. Frank and Mamah eventually settled in Wisconsin, where they were hounded by a scandal-hungry press, with tragic repercussions. Horan puts considerable effort into recreating Frank's vibrant, overwhelming personality, but her primary interest is in Mamah, who pursued her intellectual interests and love for Frank at great personal cost. As is often the case when a life story is novelized, historical fact inconveniently intrudes: Mamah's life is cut short in the most unexpected and violent of ways, leaving the narrative to crawl toward a startlingly quiet conclusion. Nevertheless, this spirited novel brings Mamah the attention she deserves as an intellectual and feminist. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (April 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345495004
• ISBN-13: 978-0345495006
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (316 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #537 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

234 of 254 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating look at the internal life of Wright and his lover, September 11, 2007

By	Barbara L. Pinzka "Book Friend" (Cincinnati, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Loving Frank: A Novel (Hardcover)

I have studied the work and bio of Frank Lloyd Wright for many years, even traveling to his Western headquarters, Taliesen West, and touring homes he built in four cities. I was well aware of his strengths and faults, but little has been published about the women in his wife, other than his domineering, smothering mother and his strident, domineering third (and last) wife. (I'm counting Mamah Borthwick, his lover for about a half-dozen years, as a second wife, since they would have married if his first wife had granted him a divorce; he and Borthwick lived together for several years).

Wright's towering ego is well known and well documented. By choosing to look at Wright and his work through the eyes of Mamah, his lover, in this fictionalized historical tale, Horan brings new insight into the demons and angels that inspired his vision. Wright's well-documented narcissism and inability to control himself personally is examined as well, but not as the fatal flaws offered by most biographers, but as components of an immensely complex and genius personality.

Mamah's (first) husband was first to see Wright's vision but Mamah was the one to embrace it wholly as Wright set about building them a home in Oak Park, not far from his own house. Wright was a star on the rise at that time, accepting commissions almost faster than he could manage them, but the affair he and Mamah embarked upon, which caused her to abandon her children, led to considerable scandal and major setbacks to his business.

Mamah was a recognized scholar and intellect until she was subsumed into a loveless marriage by the conventions of the time. In Wright she found the outlet for her passions and the independence she longed for, and the support and acceptance to rebuild her professional life, which became linked with that of the feminist Swedish scholar Ellen Keyes. Mamah's story, and that of the feminists of her time, is largely lost to history, and for reminding us of those seminal and important figures alone Horan deserves a deep bow.

Horan's work also exumes many litle-known facts about Wright and his times: his love for rural Wisconsin, where he grew up; his fascination with Japan and business in buying and selling Japanese antiguities; and his admiration for the classic Tuscan homes of northern Italy. As this book documents the times in which Wright was shaping his own vision with the help and guidance of Mamah, we can better understand the architecture for which he became so famous.

For those familiar with Wrights biography, the tragic end to his and mamah's affair is well known. For others, it will come as a shock. Horan is simply masterful in describing the events as they must have occurred.

I enjoyed the book tremendously, but I have one major quibble: Horan offers little documentation for her narrative for the reader who might want to learn as much as she does. As one generally familiar with the story I find it authemtic, but an appendix elaborating on the sources Horan used would add to the book's credibility.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars TO BE PERFECTLY FRANK..., February 5, 2008

By	Bookworm (St. George Utah) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Loving Frank: A Novel (Hardcover)

Frank Lloyd Wright was, and is, considered by many to be an architectural visionary. His Prarie homes were organic in nature and designed to blend into the landscape rather than compete with it.

Frank himself could hardly be considered as a man who "blended into the landscape" and his unconventional affair with Mamah Borthwick Cheney, a married woman with two children, resulted in tragedy both personal and professional

Author Nancy Horan's historical novel takes you into the lives and minds of this unusual couple and explores their relationship and its effect the people who loved them as well as those on the periphery of their passion.

We are drawn into the inner thoughts of Mameh, an accomplished woman in her own right.....college graduate, fluent in several languages.....and her attempt to "stop standing on the side of life watching it float by" and instead "swim in the river and feel it's current". In an era when women were expected to quash any desire for personal growth and "act happy", Mameh's personal conflict forced her to make choices that provided temporary satisfaction, but were ultimately disasterous.

Could it be that you, like me, will become so consumed by Horan's vivid portrayal of this couple that you will find yourself searching the internet for more information about "what happened after" Horan's tale ends.

123 of 140 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Overrated, October 2, 2007

By	Cecelia E Connally (Cleveland, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Loving Frank: A Novel (Hardcover)

For several weeks this book was on the best seller list and I anticipated reading it. With little knowledge of Frank Lloyd Wright I also anticipated learning something about his life and career. To the extent that I gained basic knowledge about FLW and his relationship with Mamah Cheney, the book was successful.

In some regards I found the depiction of Mamah like many historical novels that impose 21st century feelings and values on 19th century women. Since this is a true story, that statement cannot be totally true. However, I think that the author makes Mamah much more modern in her thinkings and opinions than she probably was in life.

While I thought the book was well written, somewhere along the line I missed what drew Mamah Cheney to FLW and what compeled her to have such undying love and to give up so much for "the man she loved." Maybe it was just that she wanted to get out of her relationship with Edward more so than a love for Frank. Perhaps with maturity and looking back in hind sight its easy to second guess Mamah's action. But she gave much more than he did. Consistent with FLW not paying his bills and taking advantage of friends, in a sense he took advantage of Mamah. He was able to go back and forth between his children and Mamah while she essentially burned her bridges. I question to what extent he truly loved a woman to ask her to do what she did. I certainly did not come away from this novel liking FLW.

I found Mamah to be a classic of a woman having an affair with a married man and not realizing that she was being screwed both figuratively and literally. Without Frank she literally had no place to go -no friends, no family. She gave up her children and took advantage of her sister who devoted her life to taking care of Mamah's children to be with Frank. Was the fox really worth the chase? When Mamah goes back to her house near the end of the novel I got the distinct feeling that she really second guessed her decision and the choices she made.

While other readers found this book a page turner, I labored to finish it. Unaware of Mamah's final demise, I was surprised and saddened by the ending. Even in the end, Mamah got the short end of the stick while Frank was able to go on and have other relationships and other women. He stayed on at his Taliesin. I wonder if FLW ever really realized the extent of Mamah's devotion and what she gave up for him.