Frank and Mamah

Loving Frank is meant to be a historical novel. And it is, somewhat. The dates on the pages indicate the setting as turn of the century. The novel moves from Chicago to Berlin, Paris, Tuscany, and Kyoto, to somewhere outside Madison. All those places were true and distinct in the early 20th century. There was the great Woman Movement in the states, the modernist movement in Europe, and certainly ancient art in Japan.

Regretfully our main character, Mamah Borthwick, is completely fictionalized. The only things that are truly known of her are that she was married, loved and translated the writings of Sweden’s Ellen Key, had an affair with Frank Lloyd Wright, and died in a ghastly attack at the home she and Frank shared.

Uh-oh, is that a give-away? Did I just spoil the ending? Hmm, well, it’s difficult to say. I only finished the novel because I skipped ahead wondering if anything ever actually happens other than a 40 year old mother’s internalized wondering if leaving her children was very clever. The idea that she may possibly be a martyr to free love finally gives the book some intrigue. Otherwise, random violence leveled against an introspective woman is not super interesting, especially when the woman was not the famous historical figure of the story.

Writing a fictional account of Frank’s life may be interesting, but there are already biographies and autobiographies on him. Therefore, creating a story about his love life, of which there is precious little record, does strike a note when the three or four scraps of information about one particular mistress are so incredibly potent. However, there seems to be so much more to say that would create a sense of time and place that just didn’t happen, as much of the expression in the novel came across as contemporary. When all is said and done I will be more interested in Frank’s architecture than Mamah’s translations, just as I would have been before.