Mamah Borthwick earned a master’s degree at a time when few women even attended college, translated writings by a key figure of the early feminist movement, and traveled from the American prairie to Europe, Scandinavia, and Japan. She is best known, however, as the mistress of the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright and for her shocking murder at the renowned Wisconsin home he built for her, Taliesin.
Little of Wright’s life and work has been left untouched, and yet the woman who stood at the center of his emotional life, Mamah Borthwick, has fallen into near obscurity. Mark Borthwick—a distant relative—recenters Mamah Borthwick in her own life, presenting a detailed portrait of a fascinating and complicated woman who was at once a dedicated mother and a faithless spouse, a feminist and a member of a conservative sorority, a vivacious extrovert and a social pariah. Careful research and engaging prose at last give Borthwick, an enigmatic but crucial character in one of America’s most famous tragedies, center stage.