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 … 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.
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Nancy Horan’s Under the Wide and Starry Sky.
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
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Interesting read to learn another side of Frank Lloyd Wright.
This is a great book that offers insight into the works and life of Frank Lyodd Wright and his times.
A true but historically fictionalized story set in the early 20th century of the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his lover. Very well written, it was interesting how much attitudes toward women in general have changed in just over 100 years. Remember, this was before women had the right to vote and were generally expected to stay home and …
Although well written, there were parts that dragged on unnecessarily. I found myself speed reading and not enjoying so many parts.
great fictional account of the love between two geniuses
Let me start off to say, the characters are NOT wonderful, but definitely interesting. Not all books have uplifting or wonderful people and Frank and Mamah are examples of charismatic people for many and for others, they are selfish, egotists.
I have been to West Taliesin several times and visited museums displaying Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs …
Loved it!
Amazing true story of love and loss. Loved historical love story i have never hear before . Added to Frank L Wright’s life story.
I grew up in Florida and had visited Florida Southern College which I knew was designed by FLW, but I never knew anything about his personal life. Through the years I have seen pictures of many of the houses that he designed and like his way of incorporating his plans with nature and location. O.K., that was the why I decided to read the book. I …
I did not find the story appealing.
Was a very good book telling about Frank Lloyd Wright’s life.
Any Frank Lloyd Wright fan, who’s visited a number of homes…PA, VA, AZ. in which he’s lived or built, and whose husband is named Frank, could only love this book. While fictional, you can still imagine the reality beyond the fiction.
I liked it > it has made we want read more of Frank Lloyd Wright
I disliked this novel. Mamah was a vapid character, and she almost always made the worst possible decisions. I think this was supposed to be a romance, but there was no romance involved. I didn’t feel any chemistry between Mamah and Frank, and I felt that the ending (which is accurate to real life) could have been excluded from the book.
I couldn’t put this book down! Kept wanting to see what was going to happen next with the characters in the book .
A novel about Frank Lloyd Wright and his long time love affair with what more can I say…based basically on his life as the author Mamah Borthwick in the early 20th century. I couldn’t stop reading it from the first sentence. It was moving, realistic, happy, sad…all emotions. It’s not one to miss that’s for sure!! Please read it!!
Enjoyable read.
Excellent book. I learned a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright and about feminists in the early 1900s.
This book blends historical facts and fictional
Episodes to achieve a hauntingly satisfying read.
I enjoyed this book at first. It seems to be an unbiased and clear tale of Frank Lloyd Wright’s long term affair with an intelligent, well-educated feminist in the early 20th century. But it did not hold my interest well enough to want to finish it.