Loving Frank by Nancy Horan (2008; Ballatine Books. ISBN 978-0-345-49500-6)
So my mom, who is the person most responsible for me being a writer and a reader (I remember her reading Pinocchio to me as a child) hands me this book in the social hall of our church on Sunday and says, “Read this, you’ll love it.” So of course, being the kind of son who always does what his mother says, I read Loving Frank. Here’s what I think.
The story of Mamah Borthwick, an early 20th century college educated woman and mother, married to dull but faithful Edwin, is captivating.But the story of her love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright becomes, in some ways, a lazy, self-indulgent expose of Mamah’s imagined life , and, before the climatic conclusion, seems to become stalled in angst and indecision. Well-written to be sure, the book seems bent on regaining the slow and deliberate pace of the era lived by its characters. That’s not a bad thing but I wanted, at various points in the novel, to push Mamah and Frank towards finality with respect to their obviously ill-fated affair. I grew tired of their bickering and whining over money, their respective spouses, and their lack of control over their own lives.
No doubt a favorite of women’s book clubs everywhere, this is a good read and explains, in a fictional sense, the tortured life of an American icon. 4 stars out of 5.
