| Before the publication of Loving Frank in 2007, few details were known about the love affair between Martha (nicknamed Mamah) Borthwick Cheney and the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The two met in 1903 when Mamah and Edwin H. Cheney commissioned Wright to design a new home for them. The strong attraction between Mamah and her Frank led to a very publicly conducted affair that scandalized Oak Park, Illinois. Shunned by society, haunted by the press, the lovers decamped to Paris in 1909, leaving behind their spouses and children. They lived abroad for a year. Scholars have relegated Mamah to a footnote in the long, tumultuous life of America's greatest architect. Loving Frank is based on years of solid research that has unearthed letters, diary entries, and newspaper headlines. With remarkable restraint and great sensitivity, Nancy Horan has blended the known facts with novelistic imagination to create a compelling narrative of a dramatic, ultimately tragic love story. Rich in period detail, the story is told in Mamah's voice and vividly portrays the conflicts of a woman struggling to reconcile the roles of wife, mother, lover, and intellectual one hundred years ago. Please join us for the May discussion. ~ Ann & Traude |