Death in a Prairie House

The least understood event of Frank Lloyd Wright's life involves the brutal murders in 1914 of seven adults and children dear to the architect and the destruction by fire of Taliesin, his landmark Wisconsin residence. The details of that shocking crime have been largely ignored by Wright's legion of biographers--a gap finally addressed here. In response to the scandal of his open affair with proto-feminist and free love advocate Mamah Borthwick Cheney (both were married at the time), Wright built Taliesin as a "love cottage" for himself and his mistress. The original Taliesin would stand in all its isolated glory for only a few months before the bloody slayings that rocked the nation and reduced the structure itself to a smoking hull. Author Drennan wades through the myths and casts fresh light on the cataclysmic effects that the murders exerted on the fabled architect and on his subsequent designs.--From publisher description.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.