I am smitten with my latest book, Loving Frank. I admit I took a brief detour with Stephen King's Cell before I finally dove in, but it was worth the wait.
The author has done a beautiful job of creating a novel out of diary entries, yellow-journalism articles and heresay. It's the story of love, but at a very high cost.
While reading, I found myself searching for more information on Martha, or Mamah, Borthwick Cheney, the woman for whom loving Frank was both her joy and her burden. She was an exceptional woman for her time, but she was also rash and left two young children at home to be raised by a father and his fill-in wife. I don't think there's any way I could ever do that, but I'm not Martha.
Yesterday I made the grave error of hitting a wikipedia link on Martha. I wish I hadn't. In fact, I was pissed as hell at myself. If you plan on reading this book, go no further because I will spill the details.
I assumed that Martha and Frank drifted apart. Or married later. Better yet, died in each other's arms. Oh no, dear reader, that is not the case. In fact, she was brutally murdered (with an ax people!) as were her two children, by someone who was enraged at Frank for not paying his bills.
So all the shit they go through to be together and she's the fucking victim of dumb revenge vendetta.
As I was reading that Wiki note, I was totally disheartened about finishing the book. I know the sad conclusion, is it worth the tease to read further?
But finish I must. I am not one to leave a murder victim's untold tale lying in the heap under my bed. Although I'm still pissed.
Post script: I stand corrected. I finished Loving Frank just this morning. She was not killed for money, but possibly religious fervor. By her cook. The author deduced that the perceived sinful nature of Mamah and Frank's relationship may have driven him. Or the fact that he was released from employ by her and not Frank. No one will ever know.
Great love, like great genius, can never be a duty: both are life's gracious gifts to the elect. There can be no other standard of morality for him who loves more than once than for him who loves only one: that of the enhancement of life.
4 comments:
How did you like Cell?? I loved that book.
Pretty awesome! Fast read. Typical King. It had a lot of things that reminded me of Tommyknockers. I would have liked to known who sent the pulse.
Hey I tried to comment to you about the book multiple times, but blogger just kept kicking my comment out. So I was talking to your sister today and I thought hey I need to try to leave a comment again. Since then you have added a post script, which is the real story that I was going to try and tell you.
Anyway glad you enjoyed the story, in real life Ol' Franky boy was a little wacky. Before he left for Europe with Mamah in 1909 he moved his family into his studio and rented out his home. He then left for Europe with Mamah, leaving his wife and kids for a woman that he designed a house for (her and her husband) she wasn't even divorced and neither was he. Mamah left her children and husband for Frank. In the case of Taliesin in Wisconsin, the servant who killed his live in, Mamah, and six others including her two children with an axe as they ran out of the burning Taliesin. Anyway, we know way to much about the amazing architect.
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