Loving Frank: A Novel

I read this book based on a recommendation from a friend. Even though I am not usually a fan of historical fiction, I was interested, as I have been to Falling Water and knew a few things- or so I thought- about Frank Lloyd Wright.
I was truly captivated by this book. Loving Frank tells of the clandestine love affair between the Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. This book was so amazing from a feminist stand point...Mamah was a very well-educated, strong woman who was trying to fight her way in a man's world. She did not get a fair shake in the world, but was very courageous.
The end was quite a shock and inspired me to find out more about the lives of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. (Ahhhh, now I understand the draw to historical fiction!) I spent a few hours on the internet researching after I finished reading this wonderful book. It is a story that will stay with you, and leave you wanting more.

A rather disappointing book after all the hype. Too much dwelling on Maymah's emotional torture and not enough on the relationship that drove her to leave a conventional life for that of an outcast. Too little about Frank and I still am not sure why she loved him since she portrayed him as a completely arrogant and self absorbed creature. The pain of leaving her children was well documented and finally tedious but the joy of being with Frank was stated but not explored. Too much minutia on financial matters and then all brushed away as she travels and studies and does as she pleases. Felt there should have been more at the end about Frank to tie up her influence on his life.

Loving Frank fictionalizes the love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress Mamah Cheney, a union that scandalized the world. Mamah is a woman who prizes ideas and personal freedom over convention and subservience, but sadly, she also prizes this above motherhood, and they leave behind their marriages and a tribe of children to go abroad together. This brings scorn upon them from every direction. Whereas Frank is condemned for being merely naughty, she is deemed perverse.The novel paints an accurate portrait of anti-feminist social mores of America, prone to a busy-body, indignant hypocrisy, then as now. Horan does a mainly predictable job with this material.

The flaw in this book is the lack of spark! The writing, and the characterizations are dull and insipid.Wright's genius is treated like an encyclopedia subject, the reader has to be told, not shown; we feel none of his fire. Mamah, is portrayed as his thoughtful and provocative equal,but we have to take it on faith, because she doesn't seem to be more than a foil for his narcisissm and excess.

Frankly, I was bored.

Well written and well researched account of a woman's struggle between love, passion and responsibility.

You must read this book. You will learn about history, architecture, and real love. You will also have conflicting emotions throughout the book, but in the end, you will praise this author and ask for more works to be written.