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Loving Frank (Lloyd Wright) ~ Nancy Horan ~ Prediscussion
BooksAdmin:
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
Links:
* Brief Biography of Frank Lloyd Wright
* Taliesin - Slide show
* Chicago Landmarks
* Save Wright (Preservation)
* Mamah photo
* Mamah Cheney
Discussion Leaders: Ann & Traude
straudetwo:
Welcome! We invite you to the discussion of Loving Frank = the preeminent, renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright, which we are proposing to start in May. We look forward to exploring with you this gem of a book and essential questions it still poses a century later.
Wright's legacy was retroactively shielded by his devoted apprentices and buttressed by his work. But Mamah's reputation was ruined. Nancy Horan traces the relationship of the couple from its ecstatic beginnings through doubts, compromises, renwed hope, to the tragic end.
Please plan to join us.
Ella Gibbons:
Hello Traude and Ann. I have read the book and will review it again when your discussion begins; however, I am going on an Elderhostel trip to New York for a week beginning May 10th so will be out for awhile.
But it's a good book and will make a fine discussion.
joangrimes:
I am looking forward to reading and discussing this book.
Joan Grimes
ANNIE:
Welcome to all who sign in here. We would really like to have a quorum so that the discussion can go forth.
Thanks to Traude for getting this out to the public boards.
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