Title: Loving Frank
Author: Nancy Horan
In my junior year of high school, when I was still taking drafting classes and holding out hope that BYU would add an architecture major, I wrote a research paper on Frank Lloyd Wright. I remember writing about how he wasn't much of a husband or father, but I don't remember hearing about Mamah Borthwick Cheney or her story as I was doing my research. Loving Frank chronicles the ten-year relationship between Wright and Cheney. The couple originally met when he was commissioned to design her house in Oak Park, Illinois. She was married with two children and he was married with six children. After several years of an emotional attachment, Wright and Cheney became sexually involved, and both of them left their spouses to live together, first in Europe and then at Taliesin, the house Wright designed for them in Wisconsin.
Loving Frank presents the story from Mamah's perspective. She wrestles with the idea of leaving her marriage (boring, but not unhappy), her comfortable home and her children for the sake of a great love. Was it worth it? At times Mamah really questions her choice. She turned to the ideas of Swedish philosopher Ellen Key to justify her actions. It was hard for me, as a mother, not to judge Mamah. While I understand leaving an abusive or truly unhappy marriage, it seemed that Mamah's marriage bored her, and as a result she put little effort into it, which exacerbated the problem. Her husband encouraged her to take classes, was proud of her advanced degrees, and adored her, but she gave it up for something bigger. Even though Mamah frustrated me, Horan drew her as a character who wanted to do the right thing, even though she made mistakes. I certainly wasn't prepared for the end of the novel. I wasn't sure how Horan would wrap things up, but history did that pretty effectively for her. Yowza!
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