What is it about historical fiction that I love so much? Maybe because I feel like it's better for me than just a totally made up story? Like having so much stuff in my salad that for all those calories and fat, I might as well just have had a cheeseburger?
Maybe it's because I romanticize everything, and want to know that the ultra-talented and well heeled among us are just as fallible and human as the rest of us? Or is that just some sort of twisted ego on my part?
Anyway, I thought Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan was wonderful. It's the story of the mistress of Frank Lloyd Wright - and what a woman she was! Her name was Mamah Morthwich Cheney, and besides being the lover of this fabulously creative and inventive man (who was also a bit of a selfish jerk, as you would imagine all geniuses to be), she was a very interesting figure herself. She was married (and so was he) but that didn't seem to stop them from traveling together and even having a farm estate together - known as Taliesin. She was also an accomplished poet and translator. And according to this story, they were not at all quiet about it. Many historians believe that her influence on Wright's work during the period of their affair is quite evident. Other experts dismiss this "unsavory" influence as immaterial to his architectural achievements.
Why would a woman of such accomplishment, and mother of two young children, risk so much to be with her lover? That really is an interesting story, and Horan does a great study of the roller coaster of emotions that Mameh feels as she fights for "normalcy" without Frank. She makes some really hard and difficult choices about traveling with a man who is not her husband, being a social outcast, and risking the love of her children. These are not trivial choices in any age, and certainly not so during the 1890's when this novel takes place.
Interesting though, is that I feel Mameh only succeeds in really being herself when she finally lets go even of him, and accepts their life together as a sum not of himself alone, but of the two of them as independent spirits. When she finally accepts and welcomes her own pursuits as legitimate and worthwhile, then the two meet as equals. Those are the best parts of the story.
Fundamentally, while this is partly the story of Frank and his work and indelible legacy on art and architecture, and it's partly the story of gender roles at the turn of the century, above all, it's really a love story. It's the story of what happens to Mameh when she falls completely and irrevocably in love with Frank.
I didn't get the title as so prescient until the end. Loving Frank is truly a novel about just that.
Thanks to Anita for the loan, and I'm recommending this to the CRC book club, as well. Check out Loving Frank today!
She makes some really hard and difficult choices about traveling with a man who is not her husband, being a social outcast, and risking the love of her children. These are not trivial choices in any age, and certainly not so during the 1890's when this novel takes pla
Posted by: writing jobs | October 27, 2011 at 10:32 AM