Novel explores Wright and women in his life
By Cynthia Akers - Special to the Gazette
Friday, March 27, 2009
“The Women” by T.C. Boyle, Viking, 2009, $27.95.
“On the day he met Olga Lazovich Milanoff Hinzenberg, at a ballet performance in Chicago in the fall of 1924, Frank Lloyd Wright was feeling optimistic, buoyant even.”
So begins the latest novel by T.C. Boyle, and the tone is set for a rollicking adventure in the life of Frank Lloyd Wright and all his “women” indeed! Most of us are familiar with Wright’s pioneering influence upon modern architecture, culminating in the Prairie School movement and his dream home of Taliesin, rebuilt several times literally from ashes.
Not as many, however, are familiar with Wright the individual and his entertaining history with four women who exerted considerable influences upon his life. Boyle is perhaps best known for his novel “The Road to Wellville,” an equally hilarious retelling of John Harvey Kellogg of the famous cereals and his unorthodox health beliefs.
In “The Women,” Boyle again takes biographical facts and weaves them into a story of relationships that often work against the odds.
The novel is retold as a memoir by one of Wright’s apprentices, Sato Tadashi, a fictional character who nevertheless helps in the creation of Wright’s world: focused solely upon architecture and nature, and little room for human feelings. In fact, the plot works backwards and takes some adjustment on the part of the reader.
It starts with Wright’s final relationship with Olga Hinzenburg and goes back through time to end with Wright’s mistress and great love, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, for whom the original Taliesin was constructed.
Wright is definitely not a sympathetic character as portrayed by Boyle, but he does come across as strangely likeable. The line of the women’s succession is also fascinating, starting with his first wife Kitty, to Mamah, to his second wife Miriam and finally to Olga as the third wife.
As Sato Tadashi recounts his observations of each woman, the reader is alternately frustrated at their devotion to Wright and understanding of his personal charisma. Ultimately, though, a sort of love resonates throughout the novel; an unusual love to be sure, but perhaps all that a genius such as Wright was capable of giving to anyone.
On the Net:
T.C. Boyle — http://www.tcboyle.com/index.html
On the Shelf is written by staff and volunteers of the Emporia Public Library.