Loving Frank: A Novel
by By Horan, Nancy
Category: Fiction , Biographical

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.  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.   Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling  narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose  between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan’s Mamah is a woman  seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world. Mamah’s is  an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility,  leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel’s stunning conclusion.    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. Praise for Loving  Frank: “Loving Frank is one of those novels that takes over your life. It’s mesmerizing  and fascinating–filled with complex characters, deep passions, tactile descriptions  of astonishing architecture, and the colorful immediacy of daily life a hundred years  ago–all gathered into a story that unfolds with riveting urgency.”—Lauren Belfer,  author of City of Light “This graceful, assured first novel tells the remarkable  story of the long-lived affair between Frank Lloyd Wright, a passionate and impossible  figure, and Mamah Cheney, a married woman whom Wright beguiled and led beyond the  restraint of convention. It is engrossing, provocative reading.” —Scott Turow “It  takes great courage to write a novel about historical people, and in particular to  give voice to someone as mythic as Frank Lloyd Wright. This beautifully written novel  about Mamah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright’s love affair is vivid and intelligent,  unsentimental and compassionate.” —Jane Hamilton “I admire this novel, adore this  novel, for so many reasons: The intelligence and lyricism of the prose. The attention  to period detail. The epic proportions of this most fascinating love story. Mamah  Cheney has been in my head and heart and soul since reading this book; I doubt she’ ll ever leave.”—Elizabeth Berg