Frances Grote: Architect of fiction

When Frances Grote touched down in Shanghai, China, on a long-ago business trip, she had everything she needed for her time on the road, except a book to read.

“I was in this modern, beautiful airport and didn’t see a bookstore. Then I got downtown and asked some colleagues if there was a bookstore. They said there was, but the books are all in Chinese,” Grote said.

That week spent with nothing to read inspired Grote to take matters into her own hands.

“I thought, I’ve always wanted to write a book, why don’t I just start? And that is where the first novel started,” she said.

Her first novel, “Fire in the Henhouse,” was published in 2011, followed by “Death, Madness and a Mess of Dogs,” a collection of short stories that came out in 2014.

Grote’s third fiction book just hit the market.

“Frank Lloyd Wrong” is an ode of sorts to the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Grote admires his work and often stops to see his buildings in her travels.

However, the book has nothing to do with designing structures; rather, it is about the structure of a family that is “sort of off-kilter,” as she describes it.

“The main character is a 14-year-old boy. Part of the story is the power struggle between his mother and his maternal grandmother,” Grote said. “His actual name is Christian, but his grandmother is very Jewish and is uncomfortable with calling him Christian, so she calls him Darling,”

Grote said the motivation is that Darling has been free to do as he pleases during his entire life. He and his two siblings are very intelligent.

“Then one day, Frank Lloyd shows up, and he’s not a nice guy,” Grote said. “Eventually, the mother and Frank Lloyd disappear. The grandmother takes the children to a retirement community – three kids where they’re not supposed to be. She sneaks them in, and the people in the retirement community end up fostering these kids.” 

Grote said the story features older people who play a big role in younger people’s lives.

“One of my grandmothers was a huge influence in my life. Grandparents can have a huge influence,” she said.

The idea for the title came from a friend.

“At some point it dawned on me that one of [Wright’s] buildings was going to briefly appear in the book. I thought I should name the antagonist Frank Lloyd. I told a friend I was going to name him Frank Lloyd, maybe “Frank Lloyd Wrong.” She cracked up. I thought, there’s my title,” Grote said.

Grote’s path to becoming a fiction writer was far less pragmatic than a world-renowned architect’s would be.

She was born in New York City. Her family moved to a farm in New Jersey when she was young.

“I came from a generation on the cusp of feminism. So, my parents did not think girls needed to go to college. I went to find a job after high school and was frustrated by the lack of opportunities, between being in a small town and not being educated,” she said.

Grote decided to pursue a college degree on her own. She ended up being accepted into the first class of women at Rutgers College, where she majored in psychology and Spanish.

“I was interested in psychology because my older brother, whom I adored, had what we now know as Asperger’s. There was no such diagnosis back then. So, he was a total mystery to my family.”

Grote said “Frank Lloyd Wrong” is told from the oldest son’s perspective, with a great deal of humor, based on her life experience.

The search for answers to Asperger’s and autism led Grote to a career in neuro biopsychology.

“It is the chemistry of what’s going on in our brain and the processes, which is now a very well-accepted field,” she said.

Grote took some time off to raise four children; then she jumped back into the field of pharmaceutical research in 1990.

Grote worked for Bristol Myers Squibb outsourcing clinical research.

She lived in Doylestown, Pa., and Cambridge, Mass., while spending vacations in Rehoboth Beach.

Grote said it was her time in Pennsylvania that kick-started her mind toward writing.

”My whole career was about science and technology. I had never taken in very much in terms of the humanities,” she said.

“I was lucky that Doylestown had a writers’ corner, a little storefront where professional writers gathered just to hang out, but they would do classes. There was a fantasy writer, a suspense writer, there were poets,” she said.

Grote said those classes were like attending a technical school. She said she learned that there was a lot to learn about writing.

“I thought if I started writing, it would be a book. What I discovered is my own frustration at not knowing how to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish,” she said.

She said fiction found her.

“Characters consumed me. I would get an idea for a character, and very rapidly, they would start telling their own story. I would almost feel like I’m taking dictation,” she said.

Grote said she was drawn to writing almost as an escape.

“My work life was highly social and interactive, negotiating and collaborating. Our home life was very busy. This was someplace that I could be inside that shell of my own head,” she said.

Grote’s husband, Rich, is an illustrator. He created the covers for all of her books. She said the cover for “Frank Lloyd Wrong” was inspired by a trip to Oklahoma.

The Grotes moved to Rehoboth Beach full time in 2017. “Rehoboth has a very vibrant writers’ guild,” she said.

Grote said she is now on her third retirement, but still consulting. Her next book is in the works.

“One of the beauties of not being a famous writer is you can do whatever inspires you. Book No. 4 is going to be a mystery. A women’s/friends story with a mystery woven through it,” Grote said.

Grote will be signing copies of “Frank Lloyd Wrong” at 11 a.m., Sunday, Aug. 18, at Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach.