Loving Frank |
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List Price: $38.95
Our Price: $30.24
Your Save: $ 8.71 ( 22% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged
Average Customer Rating:  
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PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Binding: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged
Manufacturer: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged
Number Of Items: 12
Publication Date: 2007-08-07
Publisher: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged
Studio: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged
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Editorial Reviews:
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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 groundbreaking historical 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 Mamah’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, and her unforgettable journey, marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leads inexorably to this novel’s stunning conclusion.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Read and discussion
Comment: The book is a well written historical novel. Although it is fictional, the story appears to be thoroughly researched and documented. Based on this documentation, including letters, newspaper articles, etc., the author presents an intimate picture of Wright's relationship with his Soul Mate, Mamah Borthwick Cheney. Wright is so passionate and focused on his work and career success, that it is surprising to see how much he cares for Mamah.
This account of the lives of two intelligent and very conscious people is told from Mamah's heart and not from Wright's perspective. Their "affair" is tabloid fodder and out of sync with the social and moral double standards of the era in which they lived. Inspite of this continual pressure, Frank and Mamah try to live their lives based on their own strong beliefs and desires.
The novel is a unique historical snapshot of the most moving events in the lives of two people who are bound together in a complex, multi-layered relationship. Although Wright went on to have other affairs and marriages, his final request was to be buried next to Mamah.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Unlikable characters
Comment: I felt the author wanted me to sympathize with Mamah, but I just couldn't. She was completely spoiled and selfish. She wanted to live her life the way she wanted with no consequences for her actions and choices. She CHOSE to marry Edwin, and not as a young, just-out-of-high school girl, but as a woman of 30. By that time she should have had more of an idea of what she wanted from life. Rather than deal with her choice, she abandoned him and her two children. He had done nothing to her - he wasn't abusive, he didn't mistreat the children. He just wasn't exciting enough for her, nor did he flatter her into thinking she was just so extremely intelligent the way Frank did. Then when she again CHOSE to leave her husband, she complained about the consequence of losing her chidren as a result. Even then, she took no steps to correct the action. Instead, she just whined about missing them. If she missed them that much, she could have gone home.
Frank was just as much, if not more, of a selfish narcissist as she was. With these two as main characters, it was hard to get into the book. My favorite scene was when her sister told her off. Lizzie, the one who had chosen not to get married because she enjoyed her life the way it was, was practically forced by circumstance to step in when Mamah ran off. Because Mamah wanted the freedom to make her own choices, it in essence robbed everyone else of their choices.
Even at the end, I felt great sympathy for Edwin, but very little for Frank and Mamah. I even felt more sympathy for Gertrude than for the ho and her pimp. That's what Mamah and Frank were to me.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Comment: I really looked forward to reading this, love all things FLW. It was a real struggle to finish it, should have quit about 1/4 of the way through. Very little emotional character development and there's a lot to draw from.
The end was particularly disturbing and although final for obvious reasons, very anticlimatic.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting fictionalized bio
Comment: I did not know the background of Frank Lloyd Wright's life so this book read like a pleasant romantic novel. I had been told that it had a startling ending. At one point, I put it down for the day and said to my friend, "I don't get it. I'm enjoying the book but I'm almost finished and life is going along so well for everyone. What could possibly be the 'startling ending'?" The next day, I turned the page and ohmygawd. What an ending. If you don't know the history of Wright, just read the book. Knowing that the ending isn't "fictionalized" makes it all the more startling.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Comment: This is the best book I have read in a long time! I could not put it down. I am recommending it to all my friends.
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