A great read, extremely well-written and well-researched. If it were not historical fiction I would never have believed the ending and would have thought the author went over the top.

“Loving Frank” is lighting up book club meetings everywhere and for good reason – there’s so much within its pages to talk about, from the historical basis to the characterization to broader themes about society, feminism and adultery.

I knew nothing about Frank Lloyd Wright before I started reading Nancy Horan’s “Loving Frank”. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that, as I live in the Buffalo, NY, area where we actually have the Darwin-Martin House and Graycliff, both designed by Wright, and neither of which I’ve ever seen. What is it they say about missing what’s in your own backyard? I didn’t know, therefore, that Wright left his first wife to have an affair with early feminist, and wife of one of his clients, Mamah Borthwick Cheney. Mamah eventually divorced her husband, but Wright’s wife would not agree to the same. I won’t go into too many other specifics of how it all ended up so as not to ruin the book for anyone, but after traveling in Europe, they spent many years in Wisconsin, building and living in their home and Frank’s studio, Taliesin.

“Loving Frank” is not a love story, nor is it ultimately about Frank Lloyd Wright, though a neophyte like me does learn a great deal about him. Instead it is exactly what the title says: the story of Mamah Borthwick’s life as it was shaped by the fact that, for good or ill, she fell in love with Frank Lloyd Wright. Mamah gives up everything to be with Frank: her marriage, her standing, and most painfully, her children, at least for many years. She suffers scorn and scandal, and deals with bouts of self-recrimination. And she also learns that loving Frank has other costs. Frank is generous, passionate and tender, but also egotistical, arrogant and irresponsible.

I was very much struck at some of the plot and thematic similarities between Horan’s historical novel and “Anna Karenina”, an avowed favorite of mine. Like Anna, some of Mamah’s choices may be difficult for readers to understand. Like Vronsky, Frank does not always come across as deserving of so much sacrifice. We are put in a similar position of not always liking our protagonist very much, nor the object of her affection, and it would be easy to translate this into saying we don’t like the book itself. But that was certainly not my reaction, either time. Tolstoy, after all, purposely gives us other characters to love. And Horan’s storytelling, here, is so compelling that you can’t help but follow Mamah on her path, even if you wish she’d chosen another one. ( )

I walked by this book in stores dozens of times before I actually bought it. The cover design is really attractive, I was intrigued by the idea of a fictionalized account of Mamah (pronounced may-muh) Cheney's scandalous relationship with Frank Lloyd Wright, I love much of Wright's work, BUT I could not get beyond that sappy title. Loving Frank. Lucky for me that I finally caved and picked up a copy.

This is author Nancy Horan's first novel and what an ambitious undertaking it is. The novel tells the story of Mamah Cheney and how she meets Frank Lloyd Wright when she and her husband commission him to build a home for them. As plans and construction of the home bring the two together frequently, they fall into a passionate relationship of both physical and intellectual attraction.

Mamah finds herself in the position of having to choose between the conventional definitions of motherhood and the life of the mind she craves as well as the romantic attachment with Wright that satisfies the yearnings of the latter. To follow the path of the individual rather than a stereotype of fit womanhood, Mamah chooses a path that has her shunned from Chicago society and sometimes equally misunderstood by the European intellectual society to which she flees. The tragic ending of her story (which in the only regrettable portion of the book occurs at a too distant point from the novel's conclusion) re-confirms a woman's lack of ability to write her own life in the early 1900s, to exist as an individual outside the confines of a culture still defined by a patriarchal voice.

This novel is very reminiscent of Kate Chopin's The Awakening where protagonist Edna Pontellier, some two decades or so before Mamah, faces some of the same disheartening choices - motherhood versus individuality, an unfulfilling conventional life versus the solitude independence may bring. Mamah has at least defined the life of her own mind in her own voice yet this brings her no more acceptance or understanding than Edna enjoyed. Both novels have themes for mothers that still resonate today as women seek to balance the needs of home and family versus their own professional or personal needs. How many mothers among us have not stopped to think why parenthood demands such sacrifice of the self for women when the same is often not required of fathers? How many of us have lost the ability to jump back in the current as we watch the passage of our lives float by defined by others? Certainly the love of one's children is a joy beyond measuring but why must it sometimes come at such a high price for women? Why has so little changed in so large an expanse of time? Love Mamah for who she is and not the fact that she achieved a moment of fame for loving a famous man. The author does this so successfully that it is a mystery to me why that title was permitted. So aside from that unfortunate title and the previously mentioned timing at the end, this was a thought-provoking, well-written joy of a read. ( )

In eerste instantie vond ik het verhaal nogal mager en langdradig. Maar het boek geeft, hoewel geromantiseerd, goed inzicht in het leven van Mamah Borthwick, waar ik niets van af wist voordat ik dit las. ( )

Very good.