I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.
So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.
In this groundbreaking historical novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America's greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Mamah's profound influence on Wright.
Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan's Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world, and her unforgettable journey, marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leads inexorably to this novel's stunning conclusion.
This charming blend of fact and fiction is based upon Mamah Borthwick Cheney's affair with renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Exploring the relationship from Cheney's perspective, Horan's novel focuses on the challenges she faces as she tries to balance the affair with her roles as mother and spouse. The story is at times gentle, at times stunning, but always captivating. Joyce Bean narrates with a grace and style that enhance the book, presenting listeners with a glimpse into the events and emotions that rocked Chicago society at the turn of the twentieth century. Using a calm yet intense tone, Bean captures Cheney's emotional struggle to justify her clandestine relationship and highlights her ability to profoundly influence the idiosyncratic Wright. D.J.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
About the Author
Nancy Horan, a former journalist and longtime resident of Oak Park, Illinois, now lives and writes on an island in Puget Sound.
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