by Ada Louise Huxtable

Factually complete but unsatisfying telling of Wright’s life. The book claims to want to draw apart actual fact from Wright’s constructed (read: fallacious) version of events, but ends up being little more than a resumé of other biographers’ accounts. Despite her claim to be objective, Huxtable is a constant apologist for and defender of Wright as a person and an architect. She too engages in Wright’s justification or “rationalization” of his actions, however questionable they may be. His motivations remain unclear, his architecture unconnected to what happened in his life. This lack of biographical clarity, combined with the lack of pictures of Wright’s buildings, leave the book feeling hollow and unrevealing.