The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright: The True Story of Mass Murder in Paradise

Journalist Sherman (Blood in the Water) recounts the murder of Frank Lloyd Wright’s lover in this fascinating work of true crime. In 1909, Wright made headlines for running off to Europe with his neighbor’s wife, translator and feminist advocate Martha “Mamah” Borthwick Cheney. The couple were hounded by reporters abroad, so when they returned from Europe, Wright built the Taliesin compound in Wisconsin where they lived together happily. Then, in 1914, while Wright was in Chicago designing Midway Gardens, a handyman killed Mamah, her two children, and several of Wright’s staff before burning Taliesin down. Sherman lingers on the mystery of the act—the suspect swallowed acid and died in jail while awaiting trial, so historians remain unsure if he was criminally insane or carrying out a targeted attack—but pays greater attention to the ways that Mamah’s death haunted Wright, who considered her the love of his life. Though he remarried, Wright was buried next to Mamah at Taliesin in 1959. Sherman exhibits both a novelist’s sense of pace and a reporter’s eye for detail in this arresting true crime narrative of great passion and great tragedy. It’s a heartbreaker. Photos. Agent: Peter Steinberg, UTA. (May)