Ballantine Books
April 2008
On Sale: April 8, 2008
Featuring: Frank Lloyd Wright
400 pages ISBN: 0345495004 EAN: 9780345495006 Paperback Add to Wish List
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.
Advance 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
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy