From the Bookshelf of Open Book Club at Kearney (NE) Public Library…

Loving Frank

Nancy Horan

Start date: April 8, 2019

Finish date: May 13, 2019

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May 11, 2019 Sarah Piper rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-bookclub, 2019

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is such a hard book for me to rate and review. I didn’t hate the writing. I didn’t hate the story. I don’t in general hate nonfiction and/or historical books.

However ... I could not love any of these characters. And I could not even love to hate them.

The line on page 301 that says “How often has she heard him say ‘I’d rather be honestly arrogant than hypocritically humble’? ... unfortunately, the attitude had become his persona; he believes it himself now. He had come to mistake his gift This is such a hard book for me to rate and review. I didn’t hate the writing. I didn’t hate the story. I don’t in general hate nonfiction and/or historical books.

However ... I could not love any of these characters. And I could not even love to hate them.

The line on page 301 that says “How often has she heard him say ‘I’d rather be honestly arrogant than hypocritically humble’? ... unfortunately, the attitude had become his persona; he believes it himself now. He had come to mistake his gift for the whole of his character.”

This is exactly how I feel about Frank Lloyd Wright. I think he is an arrogant superficial ass. The fact that they had this love affair and both leave their families doesn’t even bother me. I mean go ahead and be happy. At least Mamah comes to realize that she was selfish in her decision and tries to make it right with her children. And good for her for standing up to Frank and walking away to make him realize he needed to make some changes to be with her.

But honestly I lost steam at the start of Part 3 until about 50 pages left of the book because it felt stale and boring to me.

And can I openly say that I have learned through this book that I do no like fictional writing of historical events? I don’t know how an author (or anyone) can feel it is their right to fictionalize conversations, actions and feelings of actual people with very little frame of reference. The diaries that Mamah wrote were destroyed in the fire. She spoke to very few people about their relationship and she’s using media articles that we all know are never completely accurate depictions of reality ... and yet we have an entire book from Mamah’s perspective. I just don’t think I like this genre.

That being said. I didn’t hate it and there were some good parts. It did cause me to do some additional research on Mamah, Frank and Julian to get a little more background on somethings. So not a total loss. But I have lost some respect for Frank, more in his business dealings than just because he was a pompous jerk. ...more

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