Loving Frank

I listened to this on audio. I think I would have liked it better had I read it in print. I didn't particularly care for the reader, which was distracting. The novel itself? Mamah's story is compelling. She was quite a woman, and her feminist ideas and translations as described by Nancy Horan were important and admirable. In Mamah, Horan created a character who I respected, but didn't always like. And Horan did Frank Lloyd Wright justice, as I understand it, by portraying him as a pompous ass. So, take two lukewarm characters, throw in an unpleasant reader, and the result is a book that I just couldn't bring myself to love.

That said, Horan did a remarkable job of researching these years in Wright's life. And her writing is fluid and engaging. What can you do with historical characters, of one which little is known, the other who had a reputation as arrogant and unpleasant, and unto whom befalls a heartbreaking tragedy? Under the circumstances, she worked a miracle.

Perhaps one of the reasons I coudn't fully engage with Mamah was the fact that she abandoned her children for Wright. As a mother, I just couldn't relate. Horan did an excellent job of placing Mamah's actions into historical context, and she portrayed well the wrenching choice a mother would be forced to make between a selfhood independent of her family and custody of her children. There were no no-fault divorces and joint custody in Mamah's time. So I get it, I do. Except that I just don't get it. My heart ached for her children throughout the whole story. I was glad to finally work through to the ending I had been dreading, and to close the cover on this one. On to a happier book, I think. ( )

Nancy Horan has succeeded in spinning a tale based on the facts of Frank Lloyd Wright's notorious affair with Mamah Borthwick, the main character in Loving Frank. The story evokes strong emotions and the reader may come to loathe Ms. Borthwick, especially if said reader happens to be a mother. The writing is superb. Which proves that for literature to work you don't necessarily have to like the characters. I find the most engaging novels to be the ones that I know the characters will long stay with me. As Mamah Borthwick will certainly be . Her life can be used as a lesson for the rest of us.

I found it interesting that she didn't believe in women's intuition- she thought it was just another demeaning way to say that women didn't use all of their brains- yet in the end, her intuition could have saved her. ( )

my initial enthusiasm for this book quickly faded as it did not transport me to the past when the events take place and then the events played out more like a modern-day romance ( )

I fell in too far with this one. I identified so intensely with Mamah that I was unable to brace myself for the tragedy that I knew was coming. The writing is good. The story is compelling and as close to historically accurate as one could ask, given the paucity of historical data on Mamah Cheney. The characters are real, leaping off of the page. And the brutality of the ending was done well, if too graphically for my candyass self. ( )

This book made me fantasize about having a torrid affair with a famous architect.

( )