Loving Frank

“Well, Sullivan was a marvelous teacher, and I was the pencil in his hand. He was continually talking about making American buildings. By the time I left him to start my own practice, I was bent on doing something new—making houses that speak of this prairie land rather than some French duke’s notion of what a house should look like.”

Frank envisions a different kind of American architecture than his classically trained contemporaries. For him, the key to his style is a marriage with nature, in which one can move between an interior building and its exterior near seamlessly.

“I couldn’t think of anything more noble than making a beautiful home. Still can’t.”

Frank looks to bring people together by creating unique designs. However, he is criticized for his commitment to the home after leaving his wife, Catherine, and living with Mamah. To him, the home is a space where he finds healing, which is especially evident when he builds a new Taliesin after Mamah’s death.

“It is not sufficient to be a mother: an oyster can be a mother.”

This quote from feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman appears in Mamah’s diary. Mamah is involved in the early-20th-century Woman Movement, and she constantly wrestles with what it means to be a mother and whether or not motherhood is enough for her. Gilman’s quote speaks to her restlessness within Edwin’s home and desire to have a life of her own.

“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.”

This quote illustrates the theme of Individuality and the Creation of Art. Mamah finds herself lost until she leaves her home. She feels most like herself when she translates passages of philosopher Ellen Key’s work, as this helps her contribute to the Woman Movement.

“Because we like to have secret places that maybe only your best friend knows about.”

Mamah’s son, John, speaks to her interior life, especially as she leaves her home in Oak Park for the last time. She will live in several places, making it difficult for Ed to keep track of her—allowing her a secret, truer life with Frank.

“I would love to have some art of my own, something that sails me away.”

Mamah feels like she has nothing of her own while married to Ed. She is not working because she doesn’t need to, and so her only responsibility is as a mother, though even this role is lessened because the family has a nanny. She craves a project of her own, and this is something she only achieves after leaving her husband.

“I know it all sounds like a lot of nonsense to you, but the truth is, he shows you how much better you can live. How much better you can be. You can’t have a conversation with Frank about architecture without it turning toward nature. He says nature is the body of God, and it’s the closest we’re going to get to the Creator in this life.”

Frank’s commitment to nature moves Mamah. However, many see his ideas as a way of tempting women away from their families—especially Ed, who voices this sentiment after his wife does leave. In truth, Mamah forms an intellectual connection with Frank, and this is what sparks their relationship.

“I wish that you could experience one of his houses. He likes to hide the doorway so you have to find it. He leads you in, then surprises you. He calls it ‘the path of discovery.’”

As a work of historical fiction, Loving Frank draws on real elements of Frank Lloyd Wright’s philosophy and meditates on his life. Mamah, a lesser-known figure but nonetheless real, is both inspired by him and inspires him, even as people criticize their unorthodox life together.

“‘What about duty? What about honor?’ Mattie shook Mamah’s shoulders. ‘I know you. You wouldn’t take down two families, Mame. You couldn’t live with yourself.’”

Mamah’s friend Mattie and sister, Lizzie, both attempt to reconcile their vision of Mamah with the woman they believe she will become by leaving her family. Mattie’s questions speak to the theme of Society’s Treatment of Women and Mothers, illustrating how women in particular are blamed as “homewreckers” in affairs, even though Frank is equally involved.

“She came to think that education had made us unsuited for marriage. And sometimes I think she was right.”

The education of women challenged traditional notions of family life, and Mamah has both an undergraduate and graduate degree. As a result, she reads feminist philosophers and considers the role of women in society. Ultimately, she is dissatisfied with how women are treated and seeks others who share her view.

“All the talk revolves around getting the vote. That should go without saying. There’s so much more personal freedom to gain beyond that. Yet women are part of the problem. We plan dinner parties and make flowers out of crepe paper. Too many of us make small lives for ourselves.”

Mamah dreams of a bigger life than the one she has as a mother in Oak Park. For some, motherhood is enough, with homemaking being fulfilling in itself. However, Mamah sees travel as her way of gaining new experiences and living her truth.

“You have to be humble, because no one ever regards it as yours, of course. The translator is merely the filter.”

Translation is a recurring motif in the novel, as Mamah earns her living by translating philosopher Ellen Key’s work. While the words are not hers, the translation process helps shape them, and Mamah believes she is bettering women’s lives with her part in the process.

“How could she, how could anyone, condemn Faust, so desperate for a piece of happiness that he would sell his soul in order to say, Yes, for a brief moment, I was truly alive.”

Mamah constantly wrestles with whether or not her decision to leave her family was worth it. As such, watching the play Mefistofele is difficult for her since it reminds her of this uncertainty.

“When she boarded the train to New York, she had expected to feel relief that the thing she had so longed for and worried over had finally begun, that at last she was moving out of a tunnel of indecision into the light.”

At no point does Mamah experience sweeping relief from leaving her family for Frank. She is criticized for this decision for the rest of her life but begins to achieve a semblance of peace once her children join her for visits at Taliesin.

“A marriage consummated without mutual love, or continued without mutual love, does not elevate the personal dignity of man or woman. It is instead a criminal counterfeiting of the highest values of life.”

Mamah finds comfort in Ellen Key’s words, as they seem to reflect her own beliefs about marriage and freedom. Her love for Frank is an expression of honesty, and Key validates this belief.

“If you do the land’s bidding, you can build a house that’s organic to it.”

Nature is a recurring symbol in the novel, with Frank emphasizing how important it is to marry landscape with home. He listens to his intuition, and this drives him to Mamah, who appreciates his view of nature.

“With Mr. Wright, you just grab hold of the tail of the kite. If you can hang on, you’re going to go places you never thought possible.”

Frank’s assistant, Taylor Woolley, says this to Mamah, as she learns how difficult it can be to work for Frank. She also understands this sentiment firsthand, having left her life to join him abroad. This quote speaks to Frank’s success as an architect, despite his flaws.

“In her panics, she tallied the cost of what they had done. Two families ripped apart. The children hurt cruelly. Frank’s business wrecked. Her reputation so universally ruined that her prospects for self-support were nil if she returned. And all for what? Perhaps nothing.”

Mamah constantly considers the cost of her actions, and whenever she doubts her relationship with Frank, this cost resurfaces. This gives weight to Mamah and Frank’s relationship but also demonstrates Mamah’s love for her children despite her decision to leave them.

“Let us lived shoed lives for a while.”

Mamah is outwardly conscious of her and Frank’s decision to be apart from their families. She grows tired of their fight with society’s expectations and norms and wishes for the negative press to go away.

“What could be more expressive of the American ideal than a home where a person could feel sheltered and free at the same time?”

Mamah is amazed by Taliesin and its marriage with nature. Frank strives to create organic works of American architecture, and Mamah’s quote expresses what she sees as American about this particular building, their home: It balances freedom with security.

“The price both of them had paid for loving Frank was dear indeed.”

Mamah eventually finds kinship with Frank’s wife, Catherine, through her own struggles with Frank. She spends much of the novel vilifying Catherine, wishing Catherine would grant a divorce so she could finally marry Frank. However, she realizes Catherine, too, paid a price for Frank’s elopement (and needs the marriage to ensure child support), even if their marriage wasn’t perfect.

“I am that woman, and this book includes my own account of the events that led to those painful headlines.”

When Frank organizes a press conference to tell his and Mamah’s side of the story, he is supposed to recite their decided statement but goes off script. As a result, Mamah’s book—the existence of which is fictional—is her chance to tell her side of the story.

“The ‘freedom’ in which we joined was infinitely more difficult than any conformity with customs could have been.”

For the entirety of Frank and Mamah’s relationship, the press condemned them as taking the easy way out, of leaving their marriages without trying to make them work. They didn’t take into account the couple’s personal and professional costs. Frank attempts to rectify this discrepancy in his piece for the Weekly Home News.