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The Women

3.43 of 5 stars 3.43 · rating details · 5,172 ratings · 1,109 reviews

A dazzling novel of Frank Lloyd Wright, told from the point of view of the women in his life

Having brought to life eccentric cereal king John Harvey Kellogg in The Road to Wellville and sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in The Inner Circle, T.C. Boyle now turns his fictional sights on an even more colorful and outlandish character: Frank Lloyd Wright. Boyle's account of Wright'...more

Hardcover, 451 pages

Published February 10th 2009 by Viking Adult (first published 2008)

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Dec 04, 2009 Abby rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2009

I really wanted to like this book because I like the subject matter of Frank Lloyd Wright. However, it seems like TC Boyle merely read several biographies of Wright and then compressed them into loosely fictionalized vignettes in this novel.

The narrator's voice is probably the most confusing and least attractive aspect. The narrator's voice is presumably that of a Japanese foreign exchange student who works as an apprentice at Frank Lloyd's Wright's Midwestern Taliesin -- this is revealed in th...more

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Feb 16, 2009 Justin rated it 3 of 5 stars

In his new work, "The Women," the endlessly imaginative novelist T.C. Boyle sets his sights on the gifted architect Frank Lloyd Wright, a larger-than-life figure whose colorful exploits seem an ideal fit for Boyle's love of protagonists both epic and flaky (see "The Road to Wellville," "The Inner Circle" and many more).

Boyle's rendition of Wright strides about with appropriate ferocity, "a repository of playfulness and merriment ... that only underscored the magnetism of his genius" yet "famous...more In his new work, "The Women," the endlessly imaginative novelist T.C. Boyle sets his sights on the gifted architect Frank Lloyd Wright, a larger-than-life figure whose colorful exploits seem an ideal fit for Boyle's love of protagonists both epic and flaky (see "The Road to Wellville," "The Inner Circle" and many more).

Boyle's rendition of Wright strides about with appropriate ferocity, "a repository of playfulness and merriment ... that only underscored the magnetism of his genius" yet "famous for ... his temper, especially if he felt he wasn't getting the respect -- adulation, worship even -- he felt he deserved."

Wright was a short, Napoleonic statue of a man whose blazing personality remained unvanquished in the face of relentlessly rocky personal and public dalliances. His one-dimensionality in the book feels intentional, as Boyle uses Wright's cheerful, blockheaded stoicism as a foil for his true central characters, the women Wright drove to the edge of madness and beyond.

Using an intriguing structural device, Boyle works backward down the timeline of Wright's romances. "The Women" begins with the young dancer Olga Lazovich Milanoff, whom the architect would marry and bear a child with while in his 60s, and ends with the story of his first mistress, Mamah Borthwick Cheney. The book's middle section focuses on Wright's second wife, Maude Miriam Noel, a passionate, wildly possessive, endlessly conniving force of nature whose unbalanced personality seems both the only one equal to Wright's bravado and the one most susceptible to its obliviousness.

Boyle's backward motion proves its value in his novel's final third, landing on the point in Wright's life that has shaped everything that has happened before: the baffling murder of Cheney, her children and some of Wright's workers. Boyle is at his furious best in this final chapter, depicting the irrepressible rage of the murderer and the details of his terrible deed (committed with an ax) while also, miraculously, affording the killer a modicum of humanity. It's a dazzling piece of storytelling that cauterizes the meandering, overlong threads of the previous pages, filling the air with the smoking remnants of Wright's house, which the killer set ablaze.

The incident arrives with such searing finality, it feels as if Wright's story should be over. Until one remembers that he survived this massacre, away on business when it happened. That his story is really just beginning. (less)

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Mar 07, 2009 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've come to the conclusion that I'm just a wimp when it comes to books about FLW. I know what the ending will be, and as I approach the final pages, I find myself reading slower and slower, putting off the inevitable. The same thing happened with Loving Frank. Maybe it's because I've been to Taliesen, plus my MIL grew up near Spring Green and has her own stories about Wright and crew. Since I don't have to expend any effort visualizing the setting, I can let my imagination run wild visualizing...more

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Apr 19, 2012 Kata S. rated it 2 of 5 stars

I like T.C. Boyle. I really do. Look up, I gave him two stars. You can't tell I like him, can you?

When you are fond of an author it seems to me that every time you purchase a subsequent book by that author (new release or old) you feel assured that your precious book money is being spent very wisely. People make all sorts of investments. I wonder if most of us on Goodreads consider our books the most scrutinized and cherished investments we make in our lives. It's true of me anyway. Screw my st...more I like T.C. Boyle. I really do. Look up, I gave him two stars. You can't tell I like him, can you?

When you are fond of an author it seems to me that every time you purchase a subsequent book by that author (new release or old) you feel assured that your precious book money is being spent very wisely. People make all sorts of investments. I wonder if most of us on Goodreads consider our books the most scrutinized and cherished investments we make in our lives. It's true of me anyway. Screw my stock portfolio! What interest am I earning on that mutual fund? Oh, I don't really care. But do you know that I found a leather bound edition of The Brothers Karanazov with pencil illustrations a few weeks ago? Oh! Now that would have been a good investment indeed! I didn't buy it though because I spent all my investment money on books I have never read. It was a day of intense investing!

The Women is built on a solid concept. Look away from my two stars for a moment. Avert your eyes! No cheating...don't look at it. Boyle makes a grand attempt at detailing the account of Frank Lloyd Wright's life, monetary issues, the crazy locals, marital battles and the daily events at his home (Taliesin). The narrative is told from the perspective of a Japanese apprentice, Tadashi. I very much enjoyed Tadashi's small story line in comparison to Wright's. Go ahead, look at those two stars now. Blah! Those stars are something ugly, aren't they? Tadashi tells the history of Wright's romantic inclinations. I had a fleeting thought of "good investment" when we meet Olgivanna (Wright's last wife) but that was short lived because the novel is divided into two parts. Part one bundles three women (Olgivanna, Kitty, Mamah) into a small package. Boyle bundled the wrong women. He bundled the interesting ones! Good investment slowly sinking... Part two Tadashi introduces us to Miriam who grated painfully dull on my literary brain. Miriam and Wright's entanglement lasted eternally in this book and even poor Tadashi cannot make it the least bit interesting. My good investment had plummeted to rock bottom when Miriam's name lingered for more than a chapter and I was left with a penny stock. Boyle a penny stock!?! Oh the horror of it! The book has a redeeming quality, in that the account of Wright's life is told somewhat in reverse which does leave for a climactic ending. That gave Boyle the second star by the skin of his nose. You've seen his nose, right? Second star and further investment scrutiny for quite some time Mr. Boyle... Please do not write any more biographical fiction. Please.

I struggled to finish this book. I struggled to see my investment through to the end. Wright was without question a genius and an egoist in a very entertaining way and finding the right woman to suit him must have been very hard but those women he did choose were the dullest creatures to walk this Earth, I swear. Oprah's significant other may be more interesting. What's his name again? Just kidding.

I'm a Wisconsin resident and Wright's Taliesin is just a car ride away. I'm not fan of architecture, but I am a fan of Boyle and if Boyle had written this book in a more intriguing way I'd bet you, even with today's price of gas, I would have jumped in my car the very next weekend and gone off to visit Taliesin. A good investment book will make you do things like that.

There are books we will not understand until we have had a thorough education in the subject matter first. Then there are books we read which educate us and cause us to educate ourselves further on our own, right? The latter, more often than not, being the better investment in my opinion. My lack of education in Wright did not matter but perhaps an interest would have made this novel more appealing. My investment was a poor one. My penny stock, "The Women" did much of nothing in the way of improving my library portfolio. (less)

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Feb 29, 2012 Tim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Before reading this book, I didn't know much about Frank Lloyd Wright other than admiring his Falling Waters house in Pennsylvania, and the large overhangs associated with his Prairie style. Now I know much more about the famous architect, and not so sure that is a good thing!

A fascinating book nonetheless. The chaos of Wright's personal life - mistresses, divorce, scandal, violence - intertwined with the force of his professional talent, if not genius, and obsession with architecture. As the ba...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Rose rated it 4 of 5 stars

The story of Frank Lloyd Wright's famously passionate love life is told last-woman-first. I wondered, momentarily, whether this was the right approach, since it pretty much eliminates suspense, but I suppose TC Boyle figured none these scandals were exactly news anymore,and in this way he could reveal how every woman in Wright's life was somehow a reaction to the one who came before. This is a novel told in circles within circles rather than backward motion into the past, and it makes clear how...more

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Feb 20, 2009 Jeff rated it 5 of 5 stars

An absolutely terrific book – well-researched, consummately written, and addictively readable! I really feel Boyle is at his best when he writes biographical fiction; "The Women" is a wonderful addition to an already astounding canon of his bio-inspired work, which includes "The Road to Wellville" and "The Inner Circle."

This new novel tells the interwoven stories of the women in Frank Lloyd Wright’s life -- steadfast and obstinate Kitty Tobin Wright; erratic and opiate-addicted Miriam Noel; dis...more An absolutely terrific book – well-researched, consummately written, and addictively readable! I really feel Boyle is at his best when he writes biographical fiction; "The Women" is a wonderful addition to an already astounding canon of his bio-inspired work, which includes "The Road to Wellville" and "The Inner Circle."

This new novel tells the interwoven stories of the women in Frank Lloyd Wright’s life -- steadfast and obstinate Kitty Tobin Wright; erratic and opiate-addicted Miriam Noel; disciplined, yet eccentric Olgivanna Milanoff; and, of course, the passionate, political, and ultimately doomed Mamah Cheney. In addition to Frank’s loves, there are a slew of other formidable women who make up the story, including his clinging mother, his tough-as-nails housekeeper, and the timid Barbadian cook whose husband wreaked havoc on the great architect’s life. One of the most intriguing "women" in the book, though, is Frank’s Wisconsin estate, Taliesin, which is painted as more than just a physical building – it is also a psychological landscape.

I was simply amazed and delighted by this book. Boyle does a phenomenal job of painting Frank Lloyd Wright as a complex and contradictory character. While you bristle at Frank's arrogance, you also understand wherein his charisma lay. He is a larger-than-life character that Boyle somehow makes incredibly lifelike. He is also quite sympathetic despite the fact that Boyle depicts him unapologetically.

What makes this book such a stunning achievement (and one that, quite frankly [no pun intended:], completely surpasses Nancy Horan's "Loving Frank") is the sensitivity and intelligence with which Boyle tells the story. Rather than tell a simple, straightforward, linear narrative, the author frames the action with prefatory notes from a Japanese man who apprenticed at Taliesin. Tadashi's story is, in and of itself, a lovely and touching journey. To have his life story unfold during his retelling of Frank's is a stroke of creative brilliance, one that adds an incisive layer to the storytelling.
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Apr 15, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: may-june-2009

T. C. Boyle has written many biographical novels, but critics weren't sure that this effort fully succeeds. All agreed that Boyle is a graceful stylist whose writing, noted the Washington Post, "will reward you in the last scene of this altogether predictable and (sometimes deliciously) overwrought novel." While mostly adhering to the facts, melodramatic it is. That didn't seem to be the major problem, though. Many reviewers thought that the fictional narrator Tadashi Sato, writing a biography o

...more

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Mar 01, 2009 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Boyle, T. C. THE WOMEN. (2009). *****. I’ve always been impressed with the writing ability of this author, whose other novels include, “Drop City,” and “The Road to Wellville.” This novel (and you have to remember that it is a novel) is about four women in the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. The author chose to work backwards from his last wife, Olgivanna Milanoff, an exotic woman from Montenegro who had been a student of the Russian mystic, Gurdjieff. Before her, there was Maude Miriam Noel, a pass...more Boyle, T. C. THE WOMEN. (2009). *****. I’ve always been impressed with the writing ability of this author, whose other novels include, “Drop City,” and “The Road to Wellville.” This novel (and you have to remember that it is a novel) is about four women in the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. The author chose to work backwards from his last wife, Olgivanna Milanoff, an exotic woman from Montenegro who had been a student of the Russian mystic, Gurdjieff. Before her, there was Maude Miriam Noel, a passionate southern belle with a prediliction for morphine, who left her husband and children for Wright. Before Maude, there was Mamah Borthwick Cheney, the wife of a neighbor of Wright in Chicago, who was later killed, along with her two children at Wright’s Wisconsin estate, Taliesin, in 1914 – one of seven people hacked to death by a madly disgruntled butler that Wright had brought in from Barbados. Finally, there was Kitty Tobin, his first wife, with whom he had six children – several of them going on to become architects in their own right. The story is told with the help of Tadashi Sato, one of Wright’s apprentices at Taliesin, along with the writing help of one of the other apprentices. Sato also adds footnotes to the story as it moves along that add verisimilitude to the whole tale. You don’t get much of an idea of what Wright himself was really like in this novel, other than that he was a single-minded perfectionist in pursuit of his craft. One footnote that provides some insight was the following story told by Sato of one of the many civil cases in which Wright was involved. The judge asked him his profession and he stated that he was an architect – in fact, the world’s greatest architect. “The greatest?" the judge echoed. “How can you make that claim?” “Well, Your Honor,” Wright replied, “I am under oath.” Another footnote gives us an idea of Wright’s complete indifference to his financial affairs: “He was a keen borrower, as has been seen, but at the same time seemed to have difficulty with the concept of repayment.” If you want to know more about Wright, you have to find another book. This one is clearly about his women. Highly recommended.(less)

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Mar 26, 2013 Jen rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is beautifully written and I thought it was fantastic. While the sections are named for individual women, each one explores the overlap of relationships Wright experienced and the intense conflicts those overlaps created. Aside from the inherent conflict between Wright, a wife, and a mistress in any given section, the backwards telling also adds to the tension by hinting in the beginning of the book to tragedies Wright experienced earlier in his life, because those tragedies are built...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Donna rated it 4 of 5 stars

First book club book this year. Made for some interesting discussion. Frank Lloyd Wright was certainly an interesting character and I may eventually read some more about him. I'd like to visit one of his residential buildings. I have been at the Guggenheim but that came after this book and it doesn't have the same feel as his designed homes which I have a feeling are artistic creations and engineering and efficiency nightmares.

All that said, The Women is about the four women in Wright's life. I...more

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Jan 29, 2013 Louise rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, biographical-fiction

Author T. C. Boyle attempts to portray three of the four (five if his mother is included) major women in Frank Lloyd Wright's life in one volume. A similar fictional treatment of only one, Mamah Borthwick Cheney in "Loving Frank: A Novel" sets a very high standard. Boyle is bounded by the big topic and his chosen narrator. It is a very ambitious project.

One of the problems of presenting these three women is that the story of Mamah and her tragic death is overwhelming. It sets the stage for Miria...more Author T. C. Boyle attempts to portray three of the four (five if his mother is included) major women in Frank Lloyd Wright's life in one volume. A similar fictional treatment of only one, Mamah Borthwick Cheney in "Loving Frank: A Novel" sets a very high standard. Boyle is bounded by the big topic and his chosen narrator. It is a very ambitious project.

One of the problems of presenting these three women is that the story of Mamah and her tragic death is overwhelming. It sets the stage for Miriam and Miriam sets the stage for Olgivanna. Mamah's story needs to be told first but its drama is climatic. I presume this is why Boyle ends the book with it. Using reverse time is complicated by the overlap in the stories of Miriam and Olgivanna. Miriam's presence is heavy in Olgivanna's story. There are out of sequence vignettes usually about the narrator. The narrator's story adds a smaller, interesting, but still additional, theme.

Another problem with the triple topic is the unique personalities of these women. It may not be possible to explore their complexity and how they interconnect in one book. For instance, Ellen Key is mentioned frequently in Mamah's section, but the depth of her thinking, its nature for its time and how it influenced Mamah and FLW are minimized. Miriam's anger dominates the story of Olgivanna leaving less space for a full portrayal of Olgivanna. She is presented as a dancer with the mention of Gurdjeiff, but there is nothing to show how Gurdjeiff's philosophy and the commitment he inspired were critical in motivating Olgivanna or influencing Taliesin's development. For all its text, Miriam's story must not be complete. As a female sculptor, in this period, she had to be more than the bundle of nerves that she appears to be.

Using the voice of a former apprentice only works so far. In the long stretches where he describes scenes where he was not present you forget he is the supposed narrator until a footnote reminds you. (The narrator's use of footnotes, for me, was irritating and broke up the story.) The author has a great vocabulary and sent me to the dictionary for micturating, dehiscence, macquerreau, auscultated and others. Some were not to be found. A few others, with no dictionary handy, I just I glossed over. It does not seem that this narrator, who supposedly speaks English as a second language, would use these words.

I chose this book because of the amazing story of FLW's life. I almost stopped in the soap opera parts of Miriam but stayed to the end to see how Mamah would be interpreted.

I recommend this only for those who have an existing interest and some background in this story. Those without knowledge of FLW's personal life will have difficulty with the time changes. (less)

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Jan 09, 2013 Laura rated it 1 of 5 stars

Holy superfluous adjectives, this book was tedious. This was my second attempt to read it, I realized when I started. Last time, I returned the print edition about two chapters in. This time, I made it about 3/4 through an audio book only because it was the background to a days-long painting project.

Sure, Boyle can craft a gilded curlicue of a sentence with fleur de lis and a cherry on top, requiring both a dictionary and a map to find your way out of it. A well placed sentence like that I can...more

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Sep 10, 2012 Megan Chance rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have always really really liked T.C. Boyle. I loved "The Inner Circle," and "Riven Rock," and "The Road to Wellville." I was hoping I would like "The Women" that much. I didn't, though I did ultimately like it. Boyle is a great writer--he has a way with description, dry humor, and emotional complexity. Settling in with him is like settling in with an old and beloved friend. I have always found his writing of the emotional landscape of women very real. But this book, which is about the women in...more I have always really really liked T.C. Boyle. I loved "The Inner Circle," and "Riven Rock," and "The Road to Wellville." I was hoping I would like "The Women" that much. I didn't, though I did ultimately like it. Boyle is a great writer--he has a way with description, dry humor, and emotional complexity. Settling in with him is like settling in with an old and beloved friend. I have always found his writing of the emotional landscape of women very real. But this book, which is about the women in Frank Lloyd Wright's life, fell oddly short for me. Each woman is given a POV (though his first wife, who was with him longest, and who bore him six children, is woefully misrepresented here--I think she has two or three scenes only), and Wright himself is also a narrator. The central conceit is that the novel is written by a former Japanese apprentice of Wright's. While his story is often more riveting than the one concerning the women in Wright's life, this seemed a strange choice. By his own claims, the narrator knew only one of Wright's women well, so one questions his veracity about the others from the start.

Wright was clearly a selfish, arrogant womanizer who cared more about sating his appetites than the people he supposedly loved, and that comes across very well. But for me, the question of why these women stayed with him, why they loved him and stood by him even while he was destroying their lives, was never really answered. I never got a sense of his charisma or what inspired their devotion--and frankly, some of these women were unlikeable from the start, and the fact that I didn't get WHY they put up with it strained my sympathy for their travails just a bit. Boyle seems most fascinated by Miriam Noel--Wright's second wife, who was clearly bipolar, which adds a bizarreness to her scenes that is ultimately not very interesting. She has the most ink here--or seems to--and she is, frankly, the least sympathetic of the bunch. You sort of understood why he treated her the way he did.

Boyle's discussion of this era in America, and how the Wright's perceived immorality affected him professionally was interesting. In the end, though, I had no real idea of the reasons Frank Lloyd Wright was the way he was, or why he treated women the way he did, or what he wanted from them. And, even given the historical differences, the devotion of the women in his life remains a mystery to me.(less)

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Aug 15, 2012 Ian Mapp rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lit-fict

TC Boyle.... the TC stands for Thesaurus Consumed. Every book of his is different, every book of his has you reaching for the dictionary on an increasing basis.

This is one of his fiction based on fact books - having read the story of the Kellogs Family (road to welville) and Alred Kinsey (The inner circle) - we know have the story of Frank Lloyd Wright... America's greatest architect.

And we are not concentrating on his work - of which I know nothing, having never heard of him before, but a love...more

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Jul 15, 2012 Franziska rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: architecture, frank-llyold-wright, usa, fiction

Das Buch dreht sich um das Leben von Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) - nach seiner eigenen Einschätzung der berühmteste Architekt der USA. Dabei geht es T.C. Boyle jedoch weniger um das um das architektonische Schaffen von Wright, sondern vielmehr um seinen Lebensstil - der große "Verschleiß" an Frauen, der ständige Geldmangel oder auch das Interesse für Japan und seine Kultur.
Frank Lloyd Wright hatte vier große Liebschaften und dementsprechend ist das Buch in drei Teile unterteilt, die jeweils d...more

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Jun 26, 2012 Jenifer rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although I know almost nothing about architecture, I will read almost any interesting story or article about it. Although I previously knew almost nothing about the life and loves of Frank Lloyd Wright, I was eager to give it a go. Learning about a (presumably) fascinating man by reading about the women he chose to spend his life with? What could go wrong?

Here's what. I found that I consider him (apart from his specialized genius) ordinary. He did what he did and it changed the world; meanwhile...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Steve lovell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Pluvial. Now there’s a fine word – particularly one so apt to describe the area I’ve spent most of my life – the North West Coast of Tasmania. It’s noted for its winter pluviality – its constant rain. This word hadn’t been in my usage previous to reading Boyle’s ‘The Women’. This author, if not the US’s greatest contemporary novelist, certainly would put his hand up to be its preeminent wordsmith, such is his command of the vernacular. Many would advise to read his tomes with a dictionary at han...more Pluvial. Now there’s a fine word – particularly one so apt to describe the area I’ve spent most of my life – the North West Coast of Tasmania. It’s noted for its winter pluviality – its constant rain. This word hadn’t been in my usage previous to reading Boyle’s ‘The Women’. This author, if not the US’s greatest contemporary novelist, certainly would put his hand up to be its preeminent wordsmith, such is his command of the vernacular. Many would advise to read his tomes with a dictionary at hand, but usually one can guess at meaning pretty accurately by the tone and context of the containing sentence. His word usage is enough to entice us to dip into this title, but he does put together a terrific narrative, not allowing his desire to fit in the perfect, if obscure, word to overshadow.
‘The Women’ is an imagining of the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, a precocious architectural genius, as well as a womanizer of the first order and prescient ‘celebrity slut’. Undeniably, with his mane of wild hair, his bearing, dress and whiff of danger, be was a an early C20th babe magnet. Googling his personal life, it was undeniably hedonistic, and Boyle does not stray too far from the truth in regards the major events, or perhaps scandals would be a better word, in his hectic personal life. It was fun putting faces to these lovers of his. Buildings of his design marked a turning point in the story of architecture, and Boyle currently lives in one of them – George C Stewart House in sunny California – far distant from the seasonal vagaries of Wisconsin where the bulk of Wright’s time is spent in the book.
The novel takes three of the great roué’s wives/mistresses and presents their relationship with him in reverse order. Instead of recounting the tale straight, Boyle chooses to present events through the eyes of a Japanese apprentice (read slave) tied to Teliesin, Wright’s bucolic pile, looking back from some distance in the future. His translator/research assistant in this is O’Flattery-san, his granddaughter’s partner. Sounds complicated – it is a bit but does not detract.
‘The Women’ works its way back to the second decade of last century, and we know by the mid-point that there is a gruesome ending a-waiting, and again this is historically accurate. With that looming, the story-line becomes all that more enticing as we approach the build up to this, and the catastrophic massacre is the formidable ending that we would think would bring to an end Wright’s idyll in his Wisconsin Eden. That it doesn’t, in reality, is a testament to the man.
This tome is also an entry into American history at the time – the Mann Laws, the Prohibition and the incarceration of US Japanese citizens after Pearl Harbour. Wright’s personal life continuously became fodder for the paparazzi/gutter journalists of the time demonstrating nothing much changes under the sun, except we have it in saturation levels these days. His notoriety eventually becomes a liability rather than an asset.
This novel stands up well against Boyle’s past offerings, with ‘Riven Rock’ and ‘The Inner Circle’ remaining my favourites of his oeuvre – but I note that there are two titles published since. (I hate being behind, particularly with such a quality writer!)
Boyle continues to surprise and impress with the scope of his works and the expanse of territory between them. Each new offering is looked forward to, he rarely disappoints and each swims with lush new words.
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Feb 16, 2012 Ryandake rated it 2 of 5 stars

a friend lent me this book, for which i am glad--i'm glad i didn't spend any money on it.

in this book, the purported aim is to tell the story of frank lloyd wright's many wives and mistresses from their point of view. yay! sounds pretty interesting, doesn't it? but alas, what we readers get instead is a long, dreary, misogynist fairy tale in which all the women eventually turn out to be hags.

ok, now, fair questions: maybe all those women really were hags? maybe wright just picked 'em unstable, i...more

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Feb 05, 2012 Frank rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical

As usual, Boyle's exquisite prose makes this book worthwhile. It tells the story of Frank Lloyd Wright and his 3 wives and mistress, Mamah Cheney. Previous to reading this book, I knew practically nothing about Wright other than that he was considered probably the greatest architect of the last century. I didn't realize he had so much public scandal relating to his mistresses and wives! Wright's genius kind of gets lost in the narrative - the book is divided into 3 sections and is told in revers...more

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Jan 18, 2012 Sean Wylie rated it 4 of 5 stars

As an Oak Park boy I thought I knew all there was to know about Frank Lloyd Wright. A field trip to The Home & Studio was an annual one for an Oak Park student. Yet this book gave a whole new side of the story.

Like many egotistical geniuses Frank Lloyd Wright was brilliant, inspiring, determined, self-involved, and just a little bit CRAZY especially in relating to the women in his life as you will find.

The historical fiction based on real events is narrated by Tadashi Sato, an invented chara...more

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Nov 01, 2011 Talia Carner rated it 5 of 5 stars

Frank's women problems....

Frank Lloyd Wright was a genius who changed the way we think of architecture--and execute it. But his free spirit that allowed him to break the rules, also caused him to flaunt other traditions and to clash time and again with the mores of his time.

Narrated through the Japanese apprentice, Boyle can also step back and give the reader detailed expositions that would have been otherwise clumsy when telling the stories of each of Frank's women. With a strong prose and sur...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Audrey ❦❦❦ rated it 4 of 5 stars

The story is told in reverse chronological order by Tadashi Sato, a Japanese-American apprentice, whose story is told, along with that of Frank Lloyd Wright's by way of an anecdote (albeit a very lengthy one) at the beginning of each section.

Although I knew the story of his life already, Boyle's detailed and descriptive writing added to the story tremendously, and it was a most vivid movie that played in my head while I was listening to the story.

I hadn't listened to an ebook before, but I found...more

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Aug 19, 2011 Anne rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a much more successful book than Nancy Horan's "Loving Frank" (see below, where I gave that two stars) but not Boyle's best. It tells the story of the seminal women in Frank Lloyd Wright's life with varying degrees of detail -- possibly due to the varying amounts of source material available about each woman but, I think, more likely based on who was the most fun to write about (which would be crazy drug-addled Maude, whom I got a little tired of despite the fascinating, over-the-top nu...more

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Aug 17, 2011 Sandy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Having just re-read Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, I chose to follow up by reading The Women which provides another fictionalized account of Frank Lloyd Wright's relationships with Mamah Cheney and his three wives. I enjoyed the book although not nearly as much as Loving Frank. As Horan admits there is not a lot of information available regarding Mamah Cheney other than correspondence with Ellen Key and newspaper articles, it was interesting to see the differences between the two author's accounts...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Bungo rated it 3 of 5 stars

Bit of a weird one, really! A dramatisation (how much, I have no idea as I didn't know a thing about the subject matter prior to reading this) of the life and loves of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, as told by one of his apprentices. The "narrator" also makes copious footnotes on the content as he is Japanese and the book has been translated by his Irish son-in-law (has the son-in-law also translated the footnotes which are sometimes fairly critical of him? Who knows). Anyway, the story is chrono...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Laurie added it

After loving T.C. Boyle's humorous send up of the Kellogg universe, I've loved every one of his books until Tortilla Flats, which I found somewhat insulting to Mexican culture. Therefore, I was happy to find Boyle back on his game in this portrayal of the "complications" of Frank Lloyd Wright's love life.

Perhaps because he lives in a house designed by Wright, he seems to channel a lot of the turbulent emotions swirling around the flawed genius. I'm not too interested in architecture, but I love...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Stella rated it 4 of 5 stars

At one time I almost worshipped Frank Lloyd Wright as some sort of demi god, an unmatched creative force who left his mark in organic architecture. Then I startd reading about his personal life and my golden god started to tarnish a bit. By the time I finshed reading this book my demi god had crumbled to pieces.

The book is about..as the title implies...The Women. The women in his life and the book is narrated by a Japanese F.L. Wright apprentice, Tadashi Sato, who calls Mr. Wright 'Wrieto-San'....more

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Jan 25, 2011 Robin Cicchetti rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, literary-fiction, relationship

As a fan of the Prairie Style of architecture developed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the little I knew of his complicated personal story, this has been on my to-read list for quite some time. I finished it, but was disappointed.
The third party narration was a bizarre choice. Told by a former Japanese apprentice, Tadashi Sato, yet written at the distance of decade's by Tadashi's granddaughter's husband (an American named O'Flaherty)it is unclear if this is meant to be a formal memoir, or the memor...more

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Dec 20, 2010 Mary Novaria rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love Frank Lloyd Wright's work, but if T.C. Boyle's account of Wright's personal life is accurate, the genius architect was no prize in the husband/lover department. This kind of historical fiction is fun, taking real life people and situations and bringing them to life with imagined intimate conversations and pretend private thoughts.

The scope of this juicy book is quite wide--painting Wright's four major loves over several decades against the backdrop of his Spring Green, Wisconsin masterpi...more

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About T.C. Boyle

T. Coraghessan Boyle (also known as T.C. Boyle, born Thomas John Boyle on December 2, 1948) is a U.S. novelist and short story writer. Since the late 1970s, he has published eleven novels and more than 60 short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner award in 1988 for his third novel, World's End, which recounts 300 years in upstate New York. He is married with three children. Boyle has been a Distinguis...more

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“This was what he was born for. This was what made sense. The only thing.” — 2 people liked it

“The thought arrested her and she pulled away from him just to stand there a moment and take in the strangeness of it all. Music drifted down to her then, an odd tinkling sort of music with a rippling rhythmic undercurrent that seemed to tug the melody in another direction altogether, into the depths of a deep churning sea, but beautiful for all that, and so perfect and unexpected. She felt languid and free--all eyes were on her, every man turning to stare--and it came to her that she loved this place, this moment, these people. She could stay here forever, right here, in the gentle sway of the Japanese night.” — 1 person liked it

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