By Nancy Horan
(Reviewed by Carla Hedstrom)

I, like most Americans, am somewhat familiar with the Frank Lloyd Wright style of architecture. I have seen a room he designed at the Chicago Art Institute. I have been at the visitor center in Taliesin, Wisconsin, and I have had homes and buildings pointed out that are built in Wright’s prairie style of architecture. But, I really knew nothing about Frank Lloyd Wright the person. This novel, albeit fiction, does provide a face to the famous name.

Mamah Cheney was a well-educated woman who supported women’s suffrage, was married to a man who adored but bored her, and had two small children. Mamah and her husband hired Wright to build a house for them in Chicago, and, while the house was being designed, Mamah and Frank fell in love. It was a scandal for pre–World War I Chicago when Mamah actually left her family to accompany Frank to Europe for a year.
    
This novel tells the story of Mamah and Frank’s long-lasting relationship through her eyes, helping us to see the pain caused to both the Cheney and Wright families. To leave their children and spouses was not a thing done lightly, but both felt that it was the only thing they could do. Their decision was widely and wildly reported in the newspapers of the day, and reporters tracked them down wherever they went.

Although divorce is much more accepted now than it was in the early 20th century, women (and men) can still identify with Mamah’s journey toward understanding herself and finding what made her happy, acknowledging all the while that she was not the mother she wanted or needed to be. Frank and Mamah’s tragic ending brought tears to my eyes and renewed by desire to go back to Taliesin so I can see the home they built together.