The Women Hardback - 2009

by T. Coraghessan Boyle

A dazzling novelof Frank LloydWright, told fromthe point of viewof the women inhis lifeHaving brought to life eccentric cereal king John HarveyKellogg in The Road to Wellville and sex researcher Alfred Kinseyin The Inner Circle, T.C. Boyle now turns his fictional sights on aneven more colorful and outlandish character: Frank Lloyd Wright.Boyle's account of Wright's life, as told through the experiences ofthe four women who loved him, blazes with his trademark wit andinvention. Wright's life was one long howling struggle against thebonds of convention, whether aesthetic, social, moral, or romantic.He never did what was expected and despite the overblownscandals surrounding his amours and very public divorces andthe financial disarray that dogged him throughout his career, henever let anything get in the way of his larger-than-life appetitesand visions. Wright's triumphs and defeats were always tied to thewomen he loved: the Montenegrin beauty Olgivanna Milanoff; thepassionate Southern belle Maud Miriam Noel; the spirited MamahCheney, tragically killed; and his young first wife, Kitty Tobin. InThe Women, T.C. Boyle's protean voice captures these very differentwomen and, in doing so, creates a masterful ode to the creativelife in all its complexity and grandeur.