Chicago Book Reviews: Loving Frank

One of my favorite things about reading is all of the places you can go just by opening a book. But one of my other favorite things traveling and actually seeing some of the places in a book. And since Nathan and I spent Easter weekend in Chicago, I thought I dedicate a week to the city, featuring novels that take place in or around the city.

The first of these books is Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan. I read this several years ago after my mom and I took a trip to Chicago to celebrate my graduation. We actually spent the day in Oak Park outside of Chicago, which is not only a Frank Lloyd Wright destination but as we found out, an Ernest Hemingway destination. But more on Ernest tomorrow--today we're focusing on Frank.

Mom and I spent the afternoon on a walking tour checking out some of the masterpieces in the area, or as the web site calls it, the Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District. Here's one of my favorites. Wouldn't you love to live here?

But back to the book. Loving Frank is the story of the relationship of Mamah Borthwick Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright, which starts when Mamah and her husband commission Frank Lloyd Wright to design a home for them. Both have spouses and children, but soon the relationship between the two quickly deepens into something deeper.

The story takes us through their affair, to Europe and back to Chicago, and we see this affair through their perspectives on how it changes their lives and the effect it has on their families, particularly their children. We see Frank and Mamah through each other's eyes and see them grow and change over the course of the relationship.

The characters in this book are real, in that I didn't necessarily love them all of the time. But it was easy to see the love they had for each other, which is most obvious in the end. And the end. So much to say about the end, but don't want to ruin it.