Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
Loving Frank
by Nancy Horan
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/7820819
I ended up earreading this on CD, thanks to a copy that kept catching my eye when I passed it almost every week for months at my local library. I must say that it did not grab me at first. The first disc was almost painful to get through. It felt like I was slogging through something heavy. The book dives into the affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney almost immediately with just a few hints and little build-up before it was an established thing. And then, just as quickly, the affair is over with. Both of them have marriages and children. Both are respectables members of the Oak Park part of Chicago. I thought, surely, that couldn't be the end of it. There were still more than 10 discs left!
But then, just like that, they resume the affair. They go overseas together for months, years. They talk of the sort of happiness that comes from being your own person and living to your own ideals. This is much a feminist's book as it is historical fiction, and I liked that aspect very much. It's also set during a time when women were trying to get the right to vote and during a time when America was struggling to prove itself and discover itself. That backdrop made their relationship seem like something I should get behind. Before I knew it, was kind of rooting for them. I liked that it wasn't just Frank, this famous figure in history... it was about his faults and brilliance combined, the way marriage and divorce worked then, the woman's role of balancing self against something else--be it a man, a career, or motherhood.
But it took me until disc 8 or 9 out of 12 before I actually felt like wanting to continue the book. Until then, I was just listening and changing CDs and wishing it were just over already. But somewhere in there, I actually started enjoying the book greatly and rooting for them. And now I desperate want to go to see Taliesin. If I'm ever in Wisconsin, it'll be first on my list of places to visit, that's for sure.
Though I found it really, really hard to enjoy and get into at first, I did enjoy this book in the end and I'm glad I waded through it. The end was shocking, sad, and sort of beautiful in the way that raw emotions have beauty.