南希•霍蘭（Nancy Horan）身兼作傢和記者二職，在賴特居住過的橡樹莊園生活過25年，因此，她從小就對此一著名事件十分關注。她花瞭7年時間，搜集數據，參考舊報紙、橡樹園居民的迴憶錄、賴特在自傳中的簡短敘述，以及梅瑪與當時瑞典女性主義作傢艾倫•凱的通信，虛構齣一個鮮為人知並且令人信服的故事，由藍登書屋齣版，即刻引起轟動，高踞歐美各大暢銷書榜首，且獲得專門奬勵以美國曆史為書寫主題的庫柏“虛構曆史小說奬”最高奬，更成為各個讀書會熱烈討論的話題書籍。在霍蘭筆下，梅瑪是一個勇於尋找自己地位的新女性，她在母親、妻子、情人的角色中被迫進行選擇，其智力、心理與身體上的鬥爭令人難忘，且具有悲劇色彩。同時，本書不但拼湊齣梅瑪的生命細節，也從另一個麵嚮讓讀者看見瞭賴特對建築的信念與堅持。

南希•霍蘭現和擔任攝影師的丈夫與兩個兒子長年居住在華盛頓州普吉灣的一個小島上，專職寫作。

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.