The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 23 March 2010
by Nancy Horan
Even the blurb on this book suggests that the reader will pick it up because its protagonist is in love with famous and infamous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It is really most focused on the life of Mamah Borthwick Cheney, Wright's mistress for several years when he was in his early forties and still well before his most famous architectural accomplishments. You might also have picked it up along with similar book that came out about the same time, The Women by T. C. Boyle, which is about four women in Wright's life, including Mamah Borthwick. (One might imagine the dismay of author Nancy Horan as her first novel came out less than a year before such a similar work by a well-established author. She needn't have been too worried. Hers is a fine novel.)
The book opens with Mamah Cheney, married with two children of her own and the orphaned daughter of her sister, considering the routines of her life and entertaining the notion of a romantic entanglement with Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed her home in Oak Park, Illinois. The beginnings of their affair are furtive and romantic. Perhaps because of the author's affinity for Mamah, we get a more complete picture of her life and desires. The story doesn't necessarily need Frank Lloyd Wright, but his history and the tragic tale of their romance enrich an otherwise straightforward story of one woman's struggle to rise above the expectations of her society, to escape the strict roles expected of her. But the era is rich in progressive change. Women in America don't yet have the right to vote, but there is a strong women's movement, the kind of movement that seems to come in waves, through the 1920s, receding through the forties and fifties, rising again in the sixties and seventies, ebbing in the 80s and 90s, and maybe on the rise again today. Mamah and Frank run off with one another, first to Colorado and thence to Europe. Their affair creates a huge stir back in Oak Park. There is a swirl of gossip and their abandoned mates expect and await their return. Eventually, Mamah secures a divorce. Wright's wife was more stubborn, and Mamah realizes that may be because she realizes how isolated a lone woman is in that era. Mamah struggles to be a modern woman, with a career and creative goals. As she settles into Wright's monumental house and workshop, Taliesin, in Wisconsin, she endeavors to translate for American readers the works of Swedish feminist Ellen Key. That project is fraught with political and personal setbacks, and Mamah grows frustrated with Frank's mercurial nature.
It is a tough life they have chosen for themselves. Ultimately, Mamah never got the answer to her dreams, as her fate was tragic and gruesome. It cast a shadow over Wright's later life, but he was a powerful creative force, and thrived into ripe old age. The book is epic, though it spans just a few years. Mamah is a well-rounded person, a character rising from the shadow of her history. Wright is less well developed, perhaps because the real man is so much more well recorded. In this book, there is something strangely unconvincing in the man, as if we, as readers, are not really meant to know about the intimate details of his romantic life (despite the fact that he was actually known to be a prolific ladies man). Perhaps it is because Horan has less access to the inner workings and yearnings of this profoundly arrogant male mind. Still, as Mamah Borthwick's journey continues, Frank becomes less critical to her story. Horan creates a convincing portrait of a woman living outside of society's rules, and the tremendous price she pays for the opportunity to do so.
See Also: [Frank Lloyd Wright by Ada Louise Huxtable]