The Women, by T.C. Boyle

If only there were more novels like this one. So, so, so wonderful. I was sad to finish it. I think it will be like The Corrections for me; I'll spend years looking for one even close to this great. The book is a historical novel, based closely on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. So you not only get to read a great story, but you learn about this fascinating historical figure and his work. I learned that Wright was into organic architecture, which was integrated into nature, and despised the "gingerbread" architecture of San Francisco. Can you imagine, hating San Francisco? And yet, I can also see that he is at least partly right. 

But this is not a book about architecture. It is about Frank Lloyd Wright, and the women who loved--and were destroyed by--him. It paints him as a true genius, a magnetic and enthralling personality who left an indelible and beautiful mark on the world, but also as a true narcissist, proud and vain and self-centered. He built a homestead in rural Wisconsin, Taliesin, a sort of mini-universe that he filled with people who worshiped and served him. He was always straddling the edge of bankruptcy, and became a sort of low-level crook who constantly ran up tabs that were never settled and finagled loans that he never repaid.

He truly rode the roller coaster of life, leaving his wife for a mistress--a huge and very public scandal at the time--building Taliesin as a sort of love nest, and then having a servant at the house go crazy and murder the woman, her two children and four other people at the house while he was out of town. He was a charmer and a romantic, who had many women and even more children. But the only person he truly loved was himself. He exacted a heavy toll on those close to him. They paid for the gifts he gave to the world. I so want to go see Taliesin and Falling Water now, but trips to rural Wisconsin and Pennsylvania don't seem to be in the plans.

Comments

[Karen]

My parents went to Falling Water last summer (or the one before, I can't remember). They said it was very interesting but i doubt the tour guide discussed all this other stuff!