Book 13 - The Women by T.C. Boyle

The latest book club book - T.C. Boyle's The Women is the story of the many loves of Frank Lloyd Wright - thought I must admit that it's not that many when we review the total with today's society in mind. However, any way you slice it, Frank Lloyd Wright was a bit of a cad. For those of you who haven't seen his architectural projects in person, he was also a bit of a genius; not that that's an excuse.



Though it was not my pick for book club, The Women, was a beautiful follow up to one of our last book club books - The Devil in the White City (sorry, no review - 2009). The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is, in addition to being a magnificent book, the story of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and though it is not actually historical fiction, it packs the plot punch and captivating nature of a great novel. The Women, on the other hand, is a piece of historical fiction - yes, Frank Lloyd Wright did have quite the open policy on monogamy but I'm guessing some of the actual conversations are embellished. The books are tied not only by their rivetting (yet at least semi historical) nature but FLW has a cameo in The Devil - he visited the Chicago World's Fair as a youngin. Intrigueing.

The Women itself is fairly melodramatic (which goes over better with me than it did with other readers). There are a lot of altercations and incidents - I kept waiting for someone to get the vapors or faint - but I liked the scandalous story telling nature of the book. And the ending... well I will leave it to you to figure that one out on your own.

Boyle tells the overarching story of FLW's "womanizing" but the book also seems to be the story of a fallout from his first mistress. You find out early on that she died and it seems that he's been a little broken ever since - and yes, of course all of the women in the book are drawn to his genius and his dark, broken, artistic nature (some cliches exist for a reason). To me, he seemes pretty selfish and worthless (at times) but that brings us to the whole bigger topic of art vs. artist and I'm not sure I want to go there.

I'll just say that I really enjoyed this book. It's dense and thick and old fashioned so don't expect to race through it, but it's worth the time. The style fits the subject matter - languishing in the heat, etc. I'll have to check out Boyle's other books while I'm at it.

See what some other folks thought:
Read a review of The Women on 2 Things at Once - I completely agree with the bit about how FLW was made a minor character in his own story!

Listen to Tom Ashbrook's interview with T.C. Boyle

Read the NY Times Review of The Women