Loving Frank: A Novel by Nancy Horan
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Book Reviews of Loving Frank: A Novel
Book Review: More than just a retelling of their ill-fated romance
Summary: 5 Stars
Nancy Horan's impressive first novel, LOVING FRANK, recreates the life of Mamah Borthwick Cheney and her shocking love affair with famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The two met while living in Oak Park, Illinois, and both were married with children. After consulting on a house for her and her husband, Mamah began an affair with Frank that culminated with the pair eloping in Germany to escape the prying eyes of the judgmental press and the decimated families they left behind.
Once in Europe, Frank sets to work on several architectural projects, and Mamah, a modest feminist in her time, begins translating the works of popular European suffragist Ellen Key. Mamah thinks that Key is speaking directly to her, especially when Key talks about marriage, family and the struggle to feel complete as a person. Mamah feels horrible about abandoning her children yet at the same time realizes that she was dying a slow but no less painful death in an unhappy marriage. She desperately wants to work and believes that this --- much more than motherhood --- completes her, although she has never stopped thinking about her children and whether or not they would ever understand her plight.
Of that time back in Oak Park, Mamah writes in her journal: "I've been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current." She throws caution to the wind and dives into life with Frank, which has its share of ebbs and flows. She learns that her beloved can be boastful, prickly and not very forthright about money, but still she is committed to forging a life with him. Soon after arriving in Germany, the American press tracks them down and the couple must flee to another town.
When the pair returns from Europe, they look to Wisconsin to give them the wide open spaces necessary to build Frank's latest creation, Taliesin, a home like no other. Once there, both Frank and Mamah take greater steps in rekindling relationships with their children, which proves to be more difficult than anticipated. She cannot make up for her years abroad but tries to find some middle ground with her son and daughter. As she attempts to reconcile her relationship with the moody architect and her neglected kids, Mamah and her family are struck by a violent and incomprehensible tragedy.
More than just a retelling of their ill-fated romance, LOVING FRANK delves into Mamah's life and personality, turning her into a fully fleshed-out character. She is not a long-suffering wife nor a pitiful object of scorn. Rather, she is trying to figure out what centuries of women before her and since have been trying to determine: how to reconcile one's private self with one's role as mother and wife. Her struggles are still relatable to this day, which is exactly what Leslie Bennetts's recent book, THE FEMININE MISTAKE: Are We Giving Up Too Much? addresses.
Frank is an incredibly talented and somewhat smug character, with his own particular way of doing things. He feels that "laws and rules are made for the average man" and clearly acknowledges that it's his genius "...that causes people to make allowances." Mamah is both in awe of his talent and amazed in his confidence, finding both comfort and inspiration in his bravado.
LOVING FRANK is told in the third person, mostly from Mamah's perspective. By choosing to focus on her thoughts and feelings, Horan is able to illuminate a certain time and place, not only for an unmarried couple, but for a woman of that time as well. Mamah has tried to balance her life as a wife and mother, and also as an individual. Through her relationship with Frank, she thinks she has finally discovered a way to do just that --- but at what price? When their perfectly constructed lives are violently shattered, one wonders if that is the price for living unfettered, or were they merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Horan's meticulous descriptions reveal that this relationship was not a mere sexual dalliance, but rather a bond cultivated over years of friendship and mutual respect. It was the fact that Frank appealed to Mamah's intellect rather than her passion that she found so intoxicating. We see their relationship being built over time and then becoming an inevitable force all its own. Yes, they both made a conscious choice to leave their families behind, but Horan is careful to demonstrate that this was done with much reflection (and guilt) on Mamah's part.
We may not agree with their actions, but we certainly can see Mamah's predicament and empathize with the characters rather than judge them too harshly. Many years into the relationship, Mamah realizes that she and Frank's first wife, Catherine, shared a painful reality: "The price both of them had paid for loving Frank was dear indeed."
Book Review: Love, Architecture and Tragedy Feed Into an Involving Pre-WWI Romance
Summary: 5 Stars
Not only has the work of architect Frank Lloyd Wright been the subject of intense scrutiny but also his colorful personal life, in particular, the failure of his first two marriages and the deliberate acts of arson and murder at his Taliesin studio in 1914. First-time novelist Nancy Horan has captured just one extended episode in Wright's long, checkered life and written a terrifically engaging piece of historical fiction. Set in the years before World War I, it is fundamentally a love story between the married Wright and the wife of a client for whom he was designing one of his signature prairie houses in Oak Park. The woman was a real figure long forgotten, and her name was Mamah Borthwick Cheney. Their affair scandalized Chicago society, as both abruptly left their spouses and children in 1909 to live in Europe together. She more than he faced the judgment of an unforgiving public, and in response, she was racked with guilt. The irony is that Mamah's husband Edwin Cheney fully accepted the situation and granted her a divorce with unencumbered access to their children.
Wright, on the other hand, faced resistance from his wife Catherine who adamantly refused to divorce him. Horan handles all this potentially sensationalistic material with a minimum of melodramatic flourish, and the story evolves into the personal journey of a couple who realize they have reached a point of no return. Their co-existence becomes so insulated from the outside world that they start to view themselves as idealists who rationalize their illicit actions through dedication to their individual endeavors. Wright's career, as we all know, continues to thrive thanks to his innate brilliance, while Mamah finds the precursor to a life coach in Swedish suffragist Ellen Key. Key's proto-feminist rhetoric about the constrictions of marriage sparks Mamah to embrace her mentor's singular belief that true love trumps quotidian obligation. The couple eventually returns to America where Wright builds his famous summer home in Wisconsin, Taliesin, in the hope of shielding themselves from censure. This is where Horan lets the drama of the actual events unfold and propel the narrative.
It turns out that Key influenced Taliesin and also went through a personal transformation that allowed her to reverse her steadfast position and become a champion of motherhood. As the more elliptical figure, Mamah undergoes her own personal metamorphosis, which feels surprisingly contemporary in that author's approach. Without conveying any of her own personal judgment, Horan dares to expose a woman who made the socially unacceptable decision of allowing her self-expression take priority over her obligations as a mother. The problem Key tried to articulate in her philosophy could not be realized by Mamah without a major sacrifice, and there hasn't been that significant change in thinking a century later. Above all else, Horan is able to provide human dimension to the relationship between the lovers that touches on their own passions with unforced ease. Her book may not have the scope of E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime or even Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, two panoramic pieces of historical fiction set at the beginning of the 20th century, but I think she matches them in the vividness of the detail presented and in the immediacy of the characters' emotions.
Book Review: Brings History to Life
Summary: 5 Stars
This novel touches on the currents and issues facing America in the early 20th century A growing middle class, having left the farm for the city and suburb, is commissioning custom designed homes.
One theme is the role and situation of women. Teachers, librarians and other female workers are paid near poverty wages. Well off suburban women, like Mamah Cheney drive cars (albeit hand cranked) are free of domestic drudge (through low paid domestic help) and join clubs and form literary groups. What else do they do all day?
The times are well depicted, complete with the Bohemian cafes of Germany and the stateside canvassing for woman's sufferage. At the end Mamah worries about her European friends in the wake of the Archduke's assassination.
Nancy Horan brings to life a woman who left her comfortable home and marriage for the man who later becomes iconic. It is an operatic story, and a quick internet search shows that there is an opera, The Shining Brow, based on it.
The character of Mamah is lovingly drawn. This character is hard to reconcile with the woman who did not just leave her children, she took them to Colorado and cabled her husband to pick them up so that she could meet FLW in Germany. Once she did this, the Rubicon had been crossed. While the patient Edwin would take her back, how would this really work? What of her sister who had given so much for her and suffered public humiliation for Mamah's actions? Once Mamah leaves, there really is no going back.
Horan's portrait of Wright, while sympathetic includes his flaws. In Horan's interpretation, Wright is unable to tell Mamah, who left everything behind for him, neither his true financial status, nor his actual relations or communications with his wife and 6 children. These things seep into her consciousness when it is too late to turn back the clock.
The book sets the stage for what followed in Wright's life. Wright is not a young man and it's like starting all over. For those interested in the next stage of his life I highly recommend the non-fiction book Fellowship, The: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship.
Horan is to be saluted not only for this work of fiction, but for the research. She has brought together a lot of important material, and while this is a work of fiction, it adds perspective on FLW and his legacy.
Book Review: Gray Ambiguity
Summary: 5 Stars
Nancy Horan examines complex life, life that cannot be relegated to black and white, but that is nuanced with gray. In Loving Frank she narrates the exciting and illicit relationship between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney. Horan draws careful portraits of each based on interviews, letters, historical writing, and newspaper articles.
Both Mamah and Frank were married with families when they met in Oak Park, Illinois. They left their spouses and young children to travel and live together in Europe. Their affair became shocking newspaper headlines, and split both families apart. Mamah finally got a divorce. Frank's wife would not give him one.
Armed with historical facts Horan uses her own insight and imagination to flesh out the emotional and intellectual struggles Mamah tolerated. Her description of Mamah's initial attraction to Frank, an arrogant self-assured artist, and her gradual understanding that he was a flawed human, who needed to be challenged for taking advantage of others, and for lying to her is a compelling story of discovery.
Horan's account of Mamah's distant relationship with her children, of her sad understanding that she could no longer claim the same intimacy she had had with them, of her reflection on the price she had paid for seeking her own happiness over their well-being is described so clearly the reader is left with anger and compassion for Mamah's deliberate choice. What are the boundaries between Mamah's happiness and her children's happiness? What are the obligations of a parent to a child? Horan lays out the issues, but does not judge. She lets the reader ponder while Mamah judges herself.
Classic feminist themes are arguments Mamah used to rationalize her choices. She read Ellen Key, a Swedish feminist who wrote in the fields of family life, ethics and education. After meeting Keys Mamah translated some of her works into English for the American market. Throughout the book, until the depressing conclusion, Mamah continues to relate to her children. She continues to keep herself and her relationship with Frank honest; and she continues to come to grips with the life she has taken on. She never lets herself off the hook.
Horan's novel is full of ethical questions. It is full of female issues. Like real life it is not black and white, but grayed ambiguity. Horan respects her characters even though she sees their flaws. In the end she lets the reader form conclusions.
Book Review: An excellent first novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Author Nancy Horan has categorized her debut novel, Loving Frank, as historical fiction, but others might classify it as romance. The story is based on the real-life love affair that took place from 1907 to 1914, between world-renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright and one of his clients, Mamah Borthwick. During this period, Wright had not yet become the internationally, or even nationally recognized architect whose name is so familiar today.
Much has been written about Wright, but little information exists about Mamah Borthwick, who was married to Edwin Cheney at the time she and Wright began their liaison, so Horan created the persona of Mamah by interviewing people who were neighbors of the Cheneys, poring over articles from the yellow journalism tabloids of the time, and most importantly, reading several letters Mamah had written to Swedish philosopher Ellen Key.
The Cheneys had hired Wright, who was also married, to design and build a house for them. It was during this process that Mamah and Frank developed a close friendship, and it was after the Cheneys were living in the house but some work still needed to be completed that the intimate relationship between Mamah and Frank began. Frank's wife eventually discovered the affair, and later, Mamah confessed it to Edwin. Both Mamah and Frank ended up leaving their families (yes, there were children involved) and living together.
Horan's novel deftly traces the hefty price that Mamah, an educated woman, translator, and supporter of woman's suffrage, paid for loving Frank. She lost not only her husband and children, but her friends and sister too. Even when there were still opportunities to return to their fold, even during periods that Wright returned to his own family, Mamah maintained an independent life, because she was also on a journey of self-discovery, trying to figure out what she was beyond a wife and mother.
There were times throughout this story when I felt like kicking Mamah for not coming to her senses and other moments when I rooted her on as she championed a cause. Clearly, Horan has created a character who could have been the real Mamah Borthwick, one who has faults as well as admirable qualities.
Quill says: An excellent first novel from an author who may have you asking yourself how much women's roles have changed today.