The Women

Having divorced two self-involved would-be artistes, I'm sympathetic to the draw that Frank Lloyd Wright had for the intelligent women who found themselves in his orbit. Unlike them however, FLW had true genius and vision combined with the skill and drive to make his dreams a reality. The story of the women in Wright's life is told in reverse chronological order by an acolyte of his later years, Tadashi Sato. Sato is a Harvard educated Japanese national who's outsider observations about Wright and the American milieu are particularly pithy. He starts with the story of Wright's last wife, the one he knew, and relates the history of the previous women: Wright's drug crazed second wife, the savagely murdered mistress and the long suffering show more first wife who was mother of most of his children. In between he relates Wright's career successes, his financial failures and the trauma of the burning of his home Taliesin twice. If modern day celebrities have problems with paparazzi, they have nothing on the newspapermen who hounded Wright and his women. If true genius has a fatal flaw in Wright's case it was The Women. show less

In this novel, the author works on the daunting task of a creating a fiction based on actual people and events – specifically the life of Frank Lloyd Wright in regards to the significant women in his life. We don’t see much of his first wife, but we become very well acquainted with his first mistress (Mamah Borthwick Cheney) and his second and third wives (Maude Miriam Noel and Olgivanna Milanoff). All of the characters are well-developed and interesting in their own way. However, the way the story is told is a big downfall for this book. The narrative is framed as a true account by one of Wright’s former apprentices Tadashi Sato, loosely translated by Sato’s grandson-in-law, Seamus O’Flaherty. As the bulk of the book is show more presumably written by O’Flaherty, Tadashi likes to throw in his two cents with a footnote clarifying or expanding upon certain bits of information. However, with a footnote on nearly every page, it becomes annoying for the narrative to be interrupted so many times. Broken up into three parts (one for each of the women), Tadashi has a long introduction to each section of the book, in which he discusses events from when he was an apprentice to Wright. This makes for an odd chronology to begin with, further added to by the fact that the author chose to write backwards in time, beginning with Wright’s last wife and working his way back to his first affair. This renders many of the events in the book (especially the shocking end to Wright’s first affair) anticlimactic, as the reader has already had generous helpings of hints about these events. This also lends itself to gaps in the actual events, as certain sequences are skipped over because they do not fit into this fractured narrative (For instance, in the first section we find Wright and his second wife are already separated; at the end of the second section they are just getting married. The reason for the split is never clearly illuminated). I’m not sure what the author was trying to accomplish with this unconventional narrative (unless it was simply to be unconventional), but I think the story is interesting enough to be told in a straightforward manner (and indeed, would have benefited from this). show less

T. Coraghessan Boyle's recent biographic novel, "The Women" (2009) examines the life of renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright through the lens of Wright's tempestuous love affairs, which encompassed three wives and one mistress. The narrative is told in reverse chronological order, beginning with Wright's final wife, Olgivanna, and working backwards through Maude Miriam Noel (wife #2), Mamah Borthwick Cheney (mistress and presumptive love of his life), and ending with a section about his first wife, Catherine "Kitty" Tobin.

Boyle succeeds in conveying the unique personality of each woman with skill and conviction. Kitty, Wright's first wife, brought money, social connections, and six children to their union. She steadfastly resisted the show more urge to publicly vilify her husband after he left her. Dignified, morally impeccable, and intensely domestic, she defended Frank as a person and a father to the last, placing her children's welfare above all. Mamah, Frank's first mistress, was intelligent, romantically passionate, and tragically ahead of her time in terms of social attitudes about sex and gender equality. Her untimely death catapulted Frank into his third relationship, a rebound romance with Miriam, a flamboyant, drug-addicted femme fatale whose wild nature would cost Frank dearly when the marriage disintegrated (hell hath no fury . . . ). Frank's final wife, Olgivanna, was an aristocrat from Eastern Europe who nonetheless enjoyed physical labor, simple pleasures, and rural seclusion. She brought stability and a sense of peace, if not wild passion, to Frank's last years.

The most fascinating aspect of "The Women" may well revolve around the man, Frank Lloyd Wright, and how he managed to charm these women in the first place. The man who emerges from the book is deceptive, pompous, selfish, and incredibly self-absorbed. Boyle has stated that he admires Wright, but I can only assume he is alluding to Wright's professional accomplishments. Boyle paints the picture of a poppinjay who drives exotic cars he doesn't bother to pay for, promenades around in theatrical capes and hats, wears elevator shoes to disguise his true height, and nervously rearranges furniture for hours before dinner guests arrive at his door. He is enamored with Japanese culture and slavishly courts Japanese emissaries, greeting them at the local Wisconsin train station in a ridiculous pair of Asian pantaloons and an elongated jacket (when Miriam tries to join her husband in her own "costume," he informs her she looks absurd and makes her change clothes). He stubbornly resists paying his bills to local tradesmen and his own servants until he is absolutely forced to. He misappropriates construction advances to make personal purchases of Japanese wood block prints. He treats visiting architectural interns like day laborers, forcing them to mow the lawn and pluck chickens for dinner in return for the privilege of training with "The Master." The list goes on and on. During a court proceeding, he proclaims that he is "the greatest architect in the world," and when asked by the judge how he can make such a pronouncement, he replies that "he is under oath." What a guy.

Nonetheless, the women in Boyle's book flock to Wright like moths to the flame. They find his physical dynamism and psychological sense of command to be irresistible. They are swept away by his larger-than-life persona and creative vision. Although some of them detect Wright's clay feet earlier than others (at a fairly early stage in their relationship, Miriam stares at Wright's large cranium, which she initially worshiped as "leonine," and decides it's just a huge head), they're all initially captivated. Wright makes selfish demands upon each of them, and they all pay dearly for living life on his terms. He is conflicted about the public's reaction to his love life (wives 2 and 3 both lived with Frank prior to marriage). At times, he seeks to hide his indiscretion by passing off Miriam or Olgivana as his "housekeeper" (I'm sure they were thrilled at that); at other times he openly scoffs at convention, condemning it as a set of senseless rules for little people living little lives. He is conflicted about publicity. He loves the money and fame it brings him, but he's enraged when reporters show up at his doorstep with questions about his domestic arrangements. He is conflicted about love. He rushes into each relationship with a sense of urgent romantic inevitability, and leaves each relationship with a cool sense of detachment.

I ended up wondering whether Frank's charm with women would play in today's world. Would wives put up with him as long as he kept his misbehavior on the down low? Would young women be swept up by his international fame and eagerly throw themselves at his feet? Would the popular press alternatively praise and damn him? Catch up on your newspaper reading and decide for yourself. show less

This book took me a bit to get into, but once I was embroiled in the stories of Frank Lloyd Wright and his women, I was hooked. The talent, the temerity of this bold, talented, seductive "mama's boy" as he swept onto the Wisconsin plains to build Taliesen and move in his mother, his assistants and his successive paramours. Boyle's energetic descriptions and the breadth of the story match Wright's own movements as we traipse back (and forth) in time to learn more about the passionate, self-absorbed architect, the land, the work and of course each of his women, Kitty, Mamah, Miriam and Olgivanna, as told by Tadashi Sato, a Japanese apprentice architect at Taliesen.

Note: compelling video for paperback edition of this book: show more target="_top">http://vimeo.com/8664528 show less

A tour-de-force. Boyle takes on the voices of Wright's women--his crazy, self-centered mistress Miriam, a more manipulative, vicious woman I've seldom met in literature or in life, his lovely mistress Mamah, and his wife who bore him many children but got nothing at all from him. Whether the noveistl creates these women accurately, I have no idea, but I couldn'[t put it down. Boyle's use of foreshadowing--we know about what happens to Mamah and Taliesin as we begin but we don't get to see those years in Wright's life even though they preceded the arrival of Miriam until the end of the novel. Somehow this kind of liberty with the narrative chronology worked wonderfully. It's a powerful book about a man I can't imagine loving, a life I show more can't imagine living, and at least one woman whom I detested yet who fascinated me that she could be so detestable, such a fraud, yet manage to "get" Wright.
I've lent it to my friend Barbara Putnam though told her that it would not help her understand Wright as an architect--but perhaps it might shine light on him as a person. show less

T.C. Boyle’s new novel, The Women, is a fictionalized account of the adult years of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Writing in first person, Boyle chose as his narrator Tadashi Sato, a Japanese apprentice to Wright. The narrative revolves around the women in the architect’s life: his three wives and his mistress, Mamah Cheney. Although Tadashi Sato professes a great deal of admiration for his mentor throughout the book, ultimately Wright is not painted in a flattering light. His genius is acknowledged, but he comes across as an egotistical scoundrel. He is completely unscrupulous about money and his business dealings. Wright also justifies his scandalous treatment of women by his disregard for convention and his belief in the power of show more love. Yet when young Tadashi falls in love with a Caucasion apprentice working at his estate, Wright intervenes and puts an end to the relationship. Clearly the right to defy convention does not apply to everyone. Aside from Wright’s first wife, Kitty, I found all of the women to be equally self centered and unsympathetic.

The organization of the book was interesting. Boyle begins the novel with Wright’s third wife, and each section of the story goes backward in time to the previous woman in Wright’s life. This technique allows tension to build and enables the book to end dramatically with the murder of Mamah Cheney in 1914 and the destruction of their home, one of Wright’s architectural masterpieces. As can be expected of T.C. Boyle, the book was well written and engaging from beginning to end. show less

I liked this book a lot better than Loving Frank - for one thing the writing was better, and for another it dealt with all his wives. The perspective, that of one of his Japanese acolytes, was interesting. A long, fascinating, fast-moving story about an incredible narcissist and his, for the most part, nutty wives.