“LOVING FRANK” by Nancy HORAN

 

You sit down in your sofa, your “Loving Frank” in hand.

What you don’t know yet, is that you won’t be able to leave your sofa and do, anything else for the next hours, until you have entirely finished the damn book.

More than captivating… Engulfing.

 

I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.

So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright.

 

Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.

 

Chicago society was shocked not only because of their elopment but because they left both 6 children on  Franck LLoyd Wright’s side and 2 on  Mamah’s side.

In this ambitious debut novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America’s greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney’s profound influence on Wright.

Elegantly written and remarkably rich in detail, Loving Frank is a fitting tribute to a courageous woman, a national icon, and their timeless love story.

 

TRAGIC …