Nancy Horan - Loving Frank Review

I have to admit that I put off reading Loving Frank by Nancy Horan for a long time.  First, I bought and read every other paperback and hardcover sold in Target that caught my eye.  Eventually there was nothing else and the back cover blurb convinced me that I might find the story interesting.  Then I got a library card and read about 20 books from there before picking up Loving Frank.  Once I finally started reading it, I couldn't put it down!

Loving Frank chronicles the love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and a client's wife, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, over the course of 11 years.  The story begins with Mamah and Edwin Cheney hiring Wright to design a "good times" version of his Prairie House and follows the lovers as they try to hide their affair, they leave their spouses and run off to Europe, and eventually live together at Taliesin, a house Wright designed for Mamah in Wisconsin.  The story is told as a combination of diary entries, letters, and traditional third-person perspective.  It is very easy to read, though the 356 pages took me about twice as long to get through as my usual cheesy chick-lit. 

I really enjoyed reading Loving Frank.  I knew very little about Frank Lloyd Wright and absolutely nothing about Mamah Borthwick Cheney, but the story drew me in and had me fascinated from start to finish.  Although it is based entirely on true facts of the relationship, the conversations, diary entries, and most of the letters are works of fiction.  The ending was a huge shock to me and certainly isn't something that you'd expect if you didn't already know the story.  Still, by the time I finished the last page of Loving Frank, I felt very satisfied with the tale and was happy that I had finally picked up the book.  Recommended.