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.

A captivating novel which covers the life of Frank Lloyd Wright and his long-time love affair with Mamah. It is interesting to see the effect their affair had on their lives and how different it would be viewed today.

At first, Mamah Cheney knew Frank Lloyd Wright as the brilliant architect who was going to design her new house. While he did, they developed a close friendship, but on realizing their bounds, stepped away from each other purposely. It didn’t last long and soon they fell headlong into an affair that shocked both their families and the world. Both Mamah and Frank struggle to find their identities in the face of a hostile world and their own love.

I thought I was going to enjoy this far more than I did and to be honest it was a disappointing work that didn’t meet its full potential. The idea of humanizing and developing the love story between one of America’s greatest architects and his mistress, who appears to have been more or less reviled at the time, is at first a great one, and the book starts out promisingly. The characters struggle with the damage they’ve done to their families and themselves in the name of a “free love” which no one can understand but them.

By the time Frank and Mamah start to explore Europe, though, they had lost me. For one thing, Mamah is not a very sympathetic character. She places the discovery of the meaning of her life before her children and before Frank and it’s difficult to agree with her choice when it involves merely translating another woman’s works. Did she really have to seek out solitude and hurt everyone she loved for something that she could have done in their presence? Moreover, I didn’t like the philosophies that Ellen Key espoused and to be honest, didn’t like Ellen herself, and wished Mamah had the fortitude to write herself rather than give a voice to someone else. These are doubts that she herself struggles with, and even that bothered me to an extent. Much of this book is wrapped up in Mamah’s thoughts, regretting what she’d done and who she’d hurt, yet largely failing to right any wrongs she thought she had committed.

Frank isn’t much better, as he is brilliant but something of a wastrel, spending money on extravagances, going to faraway places, and even at times pushing Mamah into his ideal vision. This is a book with characters so flawed that they got on my nerves, and while that may be realistic, it does mean I had trouble going back to the book and concluded my dislike for it. It didn’t help that I hated the ending. Honestly, this is a true story, so I feel like it’s wrong to say that, because it would also have irked me if Nancy Horan had made up something else.

In the end, I didn’t like the characters, didn’t like where the story wound up, and didn’t like the philosophical dilemmas in between. Loving Frank was not a book for me. ( )