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 ambitious debut 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 Cheney’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. Mamah’s is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel’s stunning conclusion.

Elegantly written and remarkably rich in detail, Loving Frank is a fitting tribute to a courageous woman, a national icon, and their timeless love story.

Advance praise for Loving Frank:

“ Loving Frank is one of those novels that takes over your life. It’s mesmerizing and fascinating–filled with complex characters, deep passions, tactile descriptions of astonishing architecture, and the colorful immediacy of daily life a hundred years ago–all gathered into a story that unfolds with riveting urgency.”

–Lauren Belfer, author of City of Light

“This graceful, assured first novel tells the remarkable story of the long-lived affair between Frank Lloyd Wright, a passionate and impossible figure, and Mamah Cheney, a married woman whom Wright beguiled and led beyond the restraint of convention. It is engrossing, provocative reading.”

——Scott Turow

“It takes great courage to write a novel about historical people, and in particular to give voice to someone as mythic as Frank Lloyd Wright. This beautifully written novel about Mamah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright’s love affair is vivid and intelligent, unsentimental and compassionate.”

——Jane Hamilton

“I admire this novel, adore this novel, for so many reasons: The intelligence and lyricism of the prose. The attention to period detail. The epic proportions of this most fascinating love story. Mamah Cheney has been in my head and heart and soul since reading this book; I doubt she’ll ever leave.”

–Elizabeth Berg

From the Hardcover edition.

南希•霍兰（Nancy Horan）身兼作家和记者二职,在赖特居住过的橡树庄园生活过25年,因此,她从小就对此一著名事件十分关注。她花了7年时间,搜集数据,参考旧报纸、橡树园居民的回忆录、赖特在自传中的简短叙述,以及梅玛与当时瑞典女性主义作家艾伦•凯的通信,虚构出一个鲜为人知并且令人信服的故事,由蓝登书屋出版,即刻引起轰动,高踞欧美各大畅销书榜首,且获得专门奖励以美国历史为书写主题的库柏“虚构历史小说奖”最高奖,更成为各个读书会热烈讨论的话题书籍。在霍兰笔下,梅玛是一个勇于寻找自己地位的新女性,她在母亲、妻子、情人的角色中被迫进行选择,其智力、心理与身体上的斗争令人难忘,且具有悲剧色彩。同时,本书不但拼凑出梅玛的生命细节,也从另一个面向让读者看见了赖特对建筑的信念与坚持。

南希•霍兰现和担任摄影师的丈夫与两个儿子长年居住在华盛顿州普吉湾的一个小岛上,专职写作。