Loving Frank: A Novel
Author: Nancy Horan
ISBN: 0345495004
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Customer Rating:
, based on 191 reviews
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Editorial Review:
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 Berg
From the Hardcover edition.
I was truly captivated by this book. Loving Frank tells of the clandestine love affair between the Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. This book was so amazing from a feminist stand point...Mamah was a very well-educated, strong woman who was trying to fight her way in a man's world. She did not get a fair shake in the world, but was very courageous.
The end was quite a shock and inspired me to find out more about the lives of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. (Ahhhh, now I understand the draw to historical fiction!) I spent a few hours on the internet researching after I finished reading this wonderful book. It is a story that will stay with you, and leave you wanting more.
The flaw in this book is the lack of spark! The writing, and the characterizations are dull and insipid.Wright's genius is treated like an encyclopedia subject, the reader has to be told, not shown; we feel none of his fire. Mamah, is portrayed as his thoughtful and provocative equal,but we have to take it on faith, because she doesn't seem to be more than a foil for his narcisissm and excess.
Frankly, I was bored.
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 Berg
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
well don
I have enjoyed the book but felt it was somewhat of a slow read. Thoughful and reflective. 2008-11-16
Interesting, especially if you don't know much about Wright
I didn't know much about Wright and enjoyed this book - learning about his work and getting a glimpse into his personality. Although the work was mainly about Mamah, and got a little dull at times, overall it was a quick read and well written. 2008-11-15
An Amazing Book
I read this book based on a recommendation from a friend. Even though I am not usually a fan of historical fiction, I was interested, as I have been to Falling Water and knew a few things- or so I thought- about Frank Lloyd Wright.
I was truly captivated by this book. Loving Frank tells of the clandestine love affair between the Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. This book was so amazing from a feminist stand point...Mamah was a very well-educated, strong woman who was trying to fight her way in a man's world. She did not get a fair shake in the world, but was very courageous.
The end was quite a shock and inspired me to find out more about the lives of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. (Ahhhh, now I understand the draw to historical fiction!) I spent a few hours on the internet researching after I finished reading this wonderful book. It is a story that will stay with you, and leave you wanting more.
2008-11-13
Trials and tribulations
A rather disappointing book after all the hype. Too much dwelling on Maymah's emotional torture and not enough on the relationship that drove her to leave a conventional life for that of an outcast. Too little about Frank and I still am not sure why she loved him since she portrayed him as a completely arrogant and self absorbed creature. The pain of leaving her children was well documented and finally tedious but the joy of being with Frank was stated but not explored. Too much minutia on financial matters and then all brushed away as she travels and studies and does as she pleases. Felt there should have been more at the end about Frank to tie up her influence on his life. 2008-11-11
As flat and dull as driving across the prarie
Loving Frank fictionalizes the love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress Mamah Cheney, a union that scandalized the world. Mamah is a woman who prizes ideas and personal freedom over convention and subservience, but sadly, she also prizes this above motherhood, and they leave behind their marriages and a tribe of children to go abroad together. This brings scorn upon them from every direction. Whereas Frank is condemned for being merely naughty, she is deemed perverse.The novel paints an accurate portrait of anti-feminist social mores of America, prone to a busy-body, indignant hypocrisy, then as now. Horan does a mainly predictable job with this material.
The flaw in this book is the lack of spark! The writing, and the characterizations are dull and insipid.Wright's genius is treated like an encyclopedia subject, the reader has to be told, not shown; we feel none of his fire. Mamah, is portrayed as his thoughtful and provocative equal,but we have to take it on faith, because she doesn't seem to be more than a foil for his narcisissm and excess.
Frankly, I was bored.
2008-11-09
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