By Yankee Rose
www.eyehook.com CC BY 2.5
The other day Rube pointed out that I’ve been reading a lot of books about love lately. Maybe he noticed that I have been tearing up behind the paperbacks, or maybe he checked the reading list, but either way he was on to something. Love is a favorite theme among authors; few other emotions capture people that well.
Here are a couple books I’ve recently read that take unique approaches to the traditional love story:
Loving Frank
by Nancy Horan (Ballantine Books, August 7, 2007). Loving Frank is a vivid account of the affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. Meeting when Ms. Cheney and her husband hire Mr. Wright to design their new home, both ended up leaving their spouses to live out their lives together in exile. I won’t ruin the ending for those less intimately familiar with Mr. Wright’s personal history, but the reality of the story makes the next page an insatiable curiosity. Horan built the book off of Ms. Cheney’s diary and surviving letters, along with verbal and historical accounts of the affair. If this story wasn’t real – I don’t know if I would have bought it. As Rube says “You can’t make this stuff up.”
Us: Americans Talk About Love
by John Bowe (Faber & Faber, January 5, 2010). From all corners of America Bowe persuades a cross section of Americans to talk about their first hand accounts of love. Their love stories are tragic, happy, complacent, tortured, and so raw that you can feel like you have known the lovers for years. Bowe doesn’t wrap each story with a bow and a happy ending, and the book is as much about life after a great love and life with a great love. This collection of shorts could touch any reader – from the biggest sceptic to the most sentimental.
The Time Traveler’s Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Mary 27, 2010). I know many people have already experienced this wonderful novel, but it touched me so deeply I couldn’t resist mentioning it. Niffenegger is absolutely captivating in a love story that defies all odds. Her creativity is stunning and her characters continue to haunt me daily. The Time Traveler’s Wife is a deeply emotional and intellectual read. It is rare to find a book that tickles as many senses as this book did for me. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it. As an added bonus it will be our A-List Literates Book Club book in May.
