Product Description

From "America's most imaginative contemporary novelist" (Newsweek), a novel of Frank Lloyd Wright and the women in his life.

Having brought to life eccentric cereal king John Harvey Kellogg in The Road to Wellville and sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in The Inner Circle, T.C. Boyle now turns his fictional sights on an even more colorful and outlandish character: Frank Lloyd Wright. Boyle's incomparable account of Wright's life is told through the experiences of the four women who loved him. There's the Montenegrin beauty Olgivanna Milanoff, the passionate Southern belle Maude Miriam Noel, the tragic Mamah Cheney, and his young first wife, Kitty Tobin. Blazing with his trademark wit and inventiveness, Boyle deftly captures these very different women and the creative life in all its complexity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46804 in Books
• Published on: 2009-12-29
• Released on: 2009-12-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .96" h x 5.70" w x 8.20" l, .84 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780143116479
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The genius of Frank Lloyd Wright was both magnetic and cruel, as evidenced by the succession of failed marriages and hot-blooded affairs depicted in this biographic reimagining that drills into Wright mythology and the dark shadows of the American dream. The narrative moves backwards in time through the accounts of four women in Wrights life: Olgivanna, the steely, grounded dancer from Montenegro; Miriam, the drug-addled narcissist from the South; Kitty, the devoted first wife; and Mamah, the beloved and murdered soul mate and intellectual companion. But the novels centerpiece is Taliesin, Wrights Oz-like Wisconsin home. The tragedies that befall Taliesin—fires, brutality—serve as proxy for Wrights inner turmoil; his deeper stirrings surface only occasionally from behind Boyles oft-overbearing depiction of Wrights women. The most engaging person is Tadashi Sato, the Japanese-American apprentice and narrator who emerges via his frequent footnotes as a complex reflection of Wrieto-san and, with his inability to remain objective and his evolving view of Wright and Wrights image, becomes the books most dynamic character. Its a lush, dense and hyperliterate book—in other words, vintage Boyle. (Feb.)
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From The New Yorker
Boyle�s latest novel takes on the architect Frank Lloyd Wright by examining his notoriously tumultuous relationships with four women, each unique in her own histrionic way. Narrated in reverse chronological order by a fictional Japanese apprentice, the book is extremely readable and deftly builds a portrait of the artist as pure egoist. Unfortunately, the novel avoids any sustained consideration of Wright�s relationship to his art�a passion arguably more important in forming his genius than any of the women in his life were. Still, it proves an effective showcase for Boyle�s own strengths as a craftsman. His prose is full of vivid descriptions and turns of phrase that pop with a preternatural precision.
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From Bookmarks Magazine
T. C. Boyle has written many biographical novels, but critics weren't sure that this effort fully succeeds. All agreed that Boyle is a graceful stylist whose writing, noted the Washington Post, "will reward you in the last scene of this altogether predictable and (sometimes deliciously) overwrought novel." While mostly adhering to the facts, melodramatic it is. That didn't seem to be the major problem, though. Many reviewers thought that the fictional narrator Tadashi Sato, writing a biography of his mentor with limited knowledge, was a curious, unnecessary device. Critics also faulted Boyle's decision to tell the story backward. Finally, those perhaps hoping for a different book complained that Boyle fails to explore Wright's intellectual genius. But "love, not architecture, is the focus here," noted the New York Times Book Review -- which readers should know going in.
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