Author Shows New Side of Famed Architect

Lynn Carey - Contra Costa Times

Jul 07, 2008

"Loving Frank" author Nancy Horan lived 24 years in Oak Park, Illinois, surrounded by Frank Lloyd Wright-designed homes, but never heard a hint about the adulterous affair the architect had with Mamah Cheney, the wife of one of his clients.

It's not something the docents talk about on the tours, Horan says, wryly. "The scandal was a colossal embarrassment in Oak Park, which is nicknamed 'Saint's Rest.' It's all churches, no bars. And people didn't want their town to be associated with the scandal."

Plus, she adds, it is hard enough to educate the average person about Wright's architecture. "So, they don't go there."

Horan gradually became aware of the seven-year affair, which truly was more of a footnote in the biographies of the great architect. Even in Wright's own autobiography, Cheney wasn't mentioned by name in the first edition. But after all her research, Horan has come to believe that the woman -- an intellectual equal to Wright -- was truly the great love of his life.

On the phone from Los Angeles during her book tour, Horan spoke hesitatingly about the end of the couple's love affair, not wanting to spoil the shocking conclusion of the book for those who haven't read it. But due to her diligent research, she knows he was ill with grief. She's recently discovered he was in psychoanalysis for a time after Cheney was gone. But the bombastic man is never associated with having these kind of emotions. "He was so bigger than life and self-aggrandizing, people didn't give him the benefit of the doubt," she says.

Since "Loving Frank" was first published in hardcover in 2006 -- and subsequently landed on best-seller lists -- Horan has had the satisfaction of hearing that many Wright scholars found no fault with her research.

"The scholars were always at my back, mentally, but at the same time, I did not want to write a novel just to make them happy. To hear that reputable scholars gave it a thumbs up "... to me that's a very powerful pat on the back."

The reactions to Mamah are another thing. Once she fell in love with Wright, she basically abandoned her family to move to Europe with him.

"Some people love her, some people hate her. But happily, most people can read it, no matter what, and like the book. That's good, that means our protagonists don't have to be pure as the driven snow. I had to not judge her. I had to tell her story as she would have told it, and let the reader decide."

"Loving Frank" is Horan's first novel. She was a freelance journalist for 20 years while she raised her sons. Prior to her marriage, though, she was a schoolteacher at Pittsburg's Central Junior High School, to which she commuted from San Francisco. "I wanted an adventure," she says with a laugh.

Raising her family in Oak Park, she was often the tour guide to out-of-town visitors who wanted to see some of the Frank Lloyd Wright homes.

"I found his architecture interesting, but I wasn't insane about it. But after I started doing the research and read his essays, his ideas, I absolutely fell in love with him and his words."

Once Horan decided to focus the historical fiction on Mamah Cheney, the inventing of her inner life was in part out of necessity; there is very little tangible evidence of the life she led. She followed her footsteps, traveling to Boulder, Colo., as Cheney did. She's already been to Fiesole, Italy, which is where the couple eloped to in 1909. Newspapers served as sources for much of the book, as did census reports and some correspondence between Cheney and feminist writer Ellen Keys.

In the two years since the book's publication, Horan has been approached by "all kinds of interesting people. One of his grandchildren shared resources with me. I've heard from a woman whose mother grew up living next door to Mamah Cheney."

Next up for Horan is another historical fiction. "It's set in the 19th century, and it's about a famous man" is all she'll say.

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