Loving Frank: A Novel
by Nancy Horan
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Book Reviews of Loving Frank: A Novel
Book Review: Unlikable characters
Summary: 2 Stars
I felt the author wanted me to sympathize with Mamah, but I just couldn't. She was completely spoiled and selfish. She wanted to live her life the way she wanted with no consequences for her actions and choices. She CHOSE to marry Edwin, and not as a young, just-out-of-high school girl, but as a woman of 30. By that time she should have had more of an idea of what she wanted from life. Rather than deal with her choice, she abandoned him and her two children. He had done nothing to her - he wasn't abusive, he didn't mistreat the children. He just wasn't exciting enough for her, nor did he flatter her into thinking she was just so extremely intelligent the way Frank did. Then when she again CHOSE to leave her husband, she complained about the consequence of losing her chidren as a result. Even then, she took no steps to correct the action. Instead, she just whined about missing them. If she missed them that much, she could have gone home.
Frank was just as much, if not more, of a selfish narcissist as she was. With these two as main characters, it was hard to get into the book. My favorite scene was when her sister told her off. Lizzie, the one who had chosen not to get married because she enjoyed her life the way it was, was practically forced by circumstance to step in when Mamah ran off. Because Mamah wanted the freedom to make her own choices, it in essence robbed everyone else of their choices.
Even at the end, I felt great sympathy for Edwin, but very little for Frank and Mamah. I even felt more sympathy for Gertrude than for the ho and her pimp. That's what Mamah and Frank were to me.
Book Review: Page-Turning Read and Wright on the Money
Summary: 5 Stars
Loving Frank is a treasure. This book is more than the story of Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress, Mamah Borthwick, it is the story of a woman, who could be any one of us, trying to make her peace with her life, her surroundings, and her relationships. The text is beautifully written, there is not a word written that does not have a reason for being there.
I found both lead characters completely believable and sympathetic. It gives me tremendous hope that a contemporary writer, Horan, can write so generously on the subject of a woman's struggle with the role of motherhood. For those of the reviewers who dare to suggest that Mamah, in her time, would not have felt what Horan portrays her as feeling, I say, "hogwash." Don't think for a minute that the women of every generation have had and continue to have the feelings expressed by Mamah Borthwick. It was the women from her generation, thinking outside their roles as mothers, that got women the vote for goodness sake?!
Agree with Mamah's decisions or not, you can clearly understand the reasons she does what she does as well as her torment over the results of her choices. Mamah makes no apologies to society for her choices nor does she ask for any sympathy, she clearly just wants to BE. She's even enlightened enough to know that although she aches for her children, it is best to leave them to their daily life without her. She will have them in her life as they allow and will not place her own needs above theirs. Truly enlightened, if you ask me.
Do not this miss the beautifully written, thought-provoking triumph.
Book Review: A Treasure that's been around for a while: Gem of a first novel
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't believe I've only just now read this book when it seems to have been out there for quite some time! Growing up in Chicago, very near Oak Park, it's impossible not to have some knowledge of Frank Lloyd Wright. This brilliant first novelist takes all the facts and then weaves a tale that rings with truth about a life-altering chapter in Frank Lloyd Wright's life. What you get isn't scandal but a real love story; two people who fall in love with significant consequences because it is, after all the turn of the century, and they are each already married with children.
Get past that her name is Mamah (May-muh). Miss Horan brings you firmly into the lives of FLW and his dear Mamah, who captivates him with her ability to catch his mind, as well as his eye. The themes of allowing room and creating space for one's own inner self and soul to come to full bloom whether male or female, allowing that a woman can be brilliant irrespective of her roles as wife and mother, that a man can be both strong genius and vulnerable seeker of truth, are as fresh today as they were somewhat innovative then. There are many books written about free thinkers who were trapped by the ideology of their time. This book is about two who understood the ideology of the time but also managed to create a place for themselves in spite of it; and creating space was what FLW was all about.
I won't say much more, other reviewers have well and better beat me to it. What I will say is that this book is a journey well worth taking. Miss Horan is a beautiful, lyrical writer. Don't miss it!
Book Review: Loving Mamah....
Summary: 4 Stars
While I really enjoyed this novel and was captivated by the romance between Mamah and Frank Lloyd Wright in the first few years of the 20th Century, I really LOVED Mamah's character and found her extremely relatable, complex and indeed a woman ahead of her time. Her only condition/vice/weakness was her love for a man not her husband, for which her society shunned her, and perhaps rightly so.
What bothered me about Mamah's character was the ease with which she abandon her children for her own romantic happiness, something I personally find so hard to imagine. However, despite my inabiltiy to comprehend this aspect of her character, I still had enormous respect for her as a woman, admired her lifestyle, and continued to "root for her" throughout the novel.
While some will argue that Mamah was the love of Frank's life, I never truly felt his love for her came close to hers for him. It is true he abandoned his wife and their children to live with Mamah in Talesin, however, I believe even if Mamah never come along, his journey may have led him to live apart from them nonetheless. Frank seemed, from this novel, a man obsessed with his work, his ideals, and his idea of truth (despite his affair), all of which he valued above his love for Mamah. While there is no doubt they were in love, it seemed (as the name of the novel suggests) that this is really Mamah's story of loving Frank, more than a love of equality or of her being the love of his life.
I HIGHLY recommend this novel and know avid readers will welcome and love this novel.
Book Review: Interesting Point of View - can we say "semi"- feminist?
Summary: 4 Stars
In the early years of the 20th century, Frank Lloyd Wright left his wife and took up with Mamah Borthwick Cheney, a married woman with whom he shared a grand passion that lasted until her death. This book is written from Mamah's point of view and details the beginning of the affair, when Wright was hired to build the Cheneys a house, through the illicit couple's expatriate years in Europe, and the struggles to live together in Wisconsin, in Taleisin, the home Frank built for Mamah. Mamah's heartbreak over leaving her children is quite touching, but her love for Frank is irresistible, and she follows her heart, divorcing her guiltless husband and withstanding the public scandal the two lovers caused.
Horan's research is obvious, and Mamah comes to life here. She met and was inspired by a Swedish feminist, Ellen Key, for whom she became a translator. She was educated and thoughtful, useful and collaborative with Wright from the beginning. She tried to remain a good mother to her children, and gradually a peace developed between Mamah and her ex, and the children spent long summers with Mamah at Taleisin.
A warning though - there is a tragedy at the end of the book, one that I remember having read about somewhere previously, but if one is unprepared, it is shocking. Taleisin was the scene of one unspeakably horrific day, when its inhabitants became victims of a servant who had lost his mind. It's necessary to include the details in the book, of course, but jarringly unpleasant - random madness is hard to take, and knowing it to be factual is worse.