A book with a surprising and shocking ending - and no, I'm not going to spoil it for you. The book is a fictional account of the factual relationship between the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah (May-muh) Borthwick Cheney. I urge you not to do any research into their affiar before reading the book - it would most certainly spoil the suprising ending.
The ending is the most interesting part of the book. The rest of it is familiar to modern readers. Both Frank and Mamah are married to other people - they both have children. Their affair goes through the familiar pattern of infatuation, love, deception, estrangement from the children, hurting others by selfish actions, shame, guilt, and so forth and so on. This all takes place around 1909, so there was quite a scandal, something that would not really happen today.
If there were solely a novel, the ending would be dismissed, I think, as too sudden and melodramatic. There is certainly not enough foreshadowing of what happens. But since this is fiction based on fact, you can't really argue "that couldn't happen", since it did happen. It's one of the common "rules" presented to fiction writers. Just because something happened that way does not mean that it makes a good story.
So now you will have to read it, to find out what I am talking about and to decide for yourself if the true-life ending makes a satisfying and compelling story.
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