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The Chaperone Kindle Edition
Only a few years before becoming a famous silent-film star and an icon of her generation, a fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita, Kansas, to study with the prestigious Denishawn School of Dancing in New York. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone, who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle, a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip, has no idea what she’s in for. Young Louise, already stunningly beautiful and sporting her famous black bob with blunt bangs, is known for her arrogance and her lack of respect for convention. Ultimately, the five weeks they spend together will transform their lives forever.
For Cora, the city holds the promise of discovery that might answer the question at the core of her being, and even as she does her best to watch over Louise in this strange and bustling place she embarks on a mission of her own. And while what she finds isn’t what she anticipated, she is liberated in a way she could not have imagined. Over the course of Cora’s relationship with Louise, her eyes are opened to the promise of the twentieth century and a new understanding of the possibilities for being fully alive.
Drawing on the rich history of the 1920s, ’30s, and beyond—from the orphan trains to Prohibition, flappers, and the onset of the Great Depression to the burgeoning movement for equal rights and new opportunities for women—Laura Moriarty’s The Chaperone illustrates how rapidly everything, from fashion and hemlines to values and attitudes, was changing at this time and what a vast difference it all made for Louise Brooks, Cora Carlisle, and others like them.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRiverhead Books
- Publication dateJune 5, 2012
- File size2296 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"In her new novel, The Chaperone, Laura Morirty treats this golden age with an evocative look at the early life of silent-film icon Louise Brooks, who in 1922 leaves Wichita, Kansas, for New York City in the company of 36-year-old chaperone, Cora Carlisle. . . . A mesmerizing take on women in this pivotal era."—Vogue
"With her shiny black bob and milky skin, Louise Brooks epitomized silent-film glamour. But in Laura Moriarty's engaging new novel The Chaperone, Brooks is just a hyper-precocious and bratty 15-year-old, and our protagonist, 36-year-old Cora Carlisle, has the not-easy mission of keeping the teenager virtuous while on a trip from their native Kansas to New York City. After a battle of wills, there's a sudden change of destiny for both women, with surprising and poignant results."—Entertainment Weekly
"Throughout The Chaperone, her fourth and best novel, Laura Moriarty mines first-rate fiction from the tension between a corrupting coastal media and the ideal of heart-of-America morality. . . . . Brooks's may be the novel's marquee name, but the story's heart is Cora's. With much sharpness but great empathy, Moriarty lays bare the settled mindset of this stolid, somewhat fearful woman—and the new experiences that shake that mindset up."—San Francisco Weekly
"Film star Louise Brooks was a legend in her time, but the real lead of The Chaperone is Cora Carlise, Brooks' 36-year-old chaperone for her first visit to New York City in 1922. As Cora struggles to tame Louise's free spirit, she finds herself moving past the safety of her own personal boundaries. In this fictional account of Cora and Louise's off-and-on relationship, Laura Moriarty writes with grace and compassion about life's infinite possibilities for change and, ultimately, happiness."—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“When silent film star Louise Brooks was a sexually provocative and headstrong 15-year-old from Kansas, she traveled with a chaperone to new York City to attend dance school. In this fascinating historical novel, her minder, Cora, struggles to keep her charge within the bounds of propriety but finds herself questioning the confines of her own life. Thorough Cora the world of early 20th-century America comes alive, and her personal triumphs become cause for celebration.”—People
"Captivating and wise . . . In The Chaperone, Moriarty gives us a historically detailed and nuanced portrayal of the social upheaval that spilled into every corner of American life by 1922. . . . [An] inventive and lovely Jazz Age story."—Washington Post
"#1 Summer 2012 novel."—The Christian Science Monitor
"A fun romp."—Good Housekeeping
"Devour it."—Marie Claire
"The novel is captivating, and the last lines about Cora (you might think I’m giving everything away, but I’m not giving anything away—the story rolls through changes in terrain so subtle that it’s like a train from Wichita to New York and back) capsulate it all, revealing the richness of the saga.”—The Daily Beast
"The Chaperone," an enchanting, luminous new novel by Laura Moriarty, fictionalizes the tale of the very real caretaker who accompanied a 15-year-old Louise Brooks on the first leg of her journey to silent-movie stardom. . . . Moriarty is a lovely writer, warm and wise."—Cleveland Plain Dealer
"It is [Louise Brooks's] endearing and surprising companion Cora Carlisle—a sharply drawn creating—who is the heart and soul of this stirring story.”—Family Circle
"Captivating and wise."—Newsday
“While Louise lends The Chaperone a dose of fire, the novel’s heart is its heroine, who has a tougher time swimming in the seas of early-20th-century America than her ward does. As the story carries on, Moriarty’s greatest strength proves to be her ability to seamlessly weave together Cora’s present, future and colorful past.”—Time Out
“Set to be the hit of the beach read season.”—Matchbook
“The challenges of historical fiction are plentiful—how to freely imagine a person who really lived, how to impart modern sensibility to a bygone era, how to do your research without exactly showing your research. And yet, when this feat is achieved artfully (we’re talking Loving Frank or Arthur and George artfully), it can transport a reader to another time and place. Laura Moriarty’s new novel,The Chaperone, falls into this category.”—Bookpage
“It’s impossible not to be completely drawn in by The Chaperone. Laura Moriarty has delivered the richest and realest possible heroine in Cora Carlisle, a Wichita housewife who has her mind and heart blown wide open, and steps—with uncommon courage—into the fullness of her life. What a beautiful book. I loved every page.”—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife
“What a charming, mesmerizing, transporting novel! The characters are so fully realized that I felt I was right there alongside them. A beautiful clarity marks both the style and structure of The Chaperone.”—Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife and Adam & Eve
“The Chaperone is the best kind of historical fiction, transporting you to another time and place, but even more importantly delivering a poignant story about people so real, you'll miss and remember them long after you close the book.”—Jenna Blum, author of Those Who Save Us and The Stormchasers
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The First time Cora heard the name Louise Brooks, she was parked outside the Wichita Library in a Model-T Ford, waiting for the rain to stop. If Cora had been alone, unencumbered, she might have made a dash across the lawn and up the library’s stone steps, but she and her friend Viola Hammond had spent the morning going door-to-door in their neighborhood, collecting books for the new children’s room, and the considerable fruits of their efforts were safe and dry in four crates in the backseat. The storm, they decided, would be a short one, and they couldn’t risk the books getting wet.
And really, Cora thought, staring out into the rain, it wasn’t as if she had anything else to do. Her boys were already gone for the summer, both of them working on a farm outside Win?eld. In the fall, they would leave for college. Cora was still getting used to the quiet, and also the freedom, of this new era of her life. Now, long after Della left for the day, the house stayed clean, with no muddy footprints on the ?oor, and no records scattered around the phonograph. There were no squabbles over the car to mediate, no tennis matches at the club to cheer on, and no assigned essays to proofread and commend. The pantry and icebox actually stayed stocked with food without daily trips to the store. Today, with Alan at work, she had no reason to rush home at all.
“I’m glad we took your car and not ours,” Viola said, adjusting her hat, which was pretty, a puffed turban with an ostrich feather curling down from the crown. “People say closed cars are a luxury, but not on a day like this.”
Cora gave her what she hoped was a modest smile. Not only was the car covered, it had come with an electric starter. Cranking cars, no business for a lady, was how the ad went, though Alan had admitted he didn’t miss cranking either.
Viola turned, eyeing the books in the backseat. “People were generous,” she allowed. Viola was a decade older than Cora, her hair already gray at the temples, and she spoke with the authority of her added years. “Mostly. You notice Myra Brooks didn’t even open her door.”
Cora hadn’t noticed. She’d been working the other side of the street. “Maybe she wasn’t home.”
“I heard the piano.” Viola’s eyes slid toward Cora. “She didn’t bother to stop playing when I knocked. I have to say, she’s very good.”
Lightning shot across the western sky, and though both women ?inched, Cora, without thinking, smiled. She’d always loved these late-spring storms. They came on so fast, rolling in from the prairie on expanding columns of clouds, a welcome release from the day’s building heat. An hour before, when Cora and Viola were canvassing, the sun was hot in a blue sky. Now rain fell fast enough to slice green leaves from the big oak outside the library. The lilacs trembled and tossed.
“Don’t you think she’s a tiresome snob?”
Cora hesitated. She didn’t like to gossip, but she could hardly count Myra Brooks as a friend. And they’d been to how many suffrage meetings together? Had marched together in the street? Yet if she passed Myra today on Douglas Avenue, Cora wouldn’t get so much as a hello. Still, she never got the feeling that it was snobbery as much as Myra simply not registering her existence, and there was a chance it was nothing personal. Myra Brooks didn’t seem to look at anyone, Cora had noticed, not unless she was the one speaking, watching for the impression she made. And yet, of course, everyone looked at her. She was, perhaps, the most beautiful woman Cora had ever seen in person: she had pale skin, ?awless, and large, dark eyes, and then all that thick, dark hair. She was certainly a talented speaker—her voice was never shrill, and her enunciations were clear. But everyone knew it was Myra’s looks that had made her a particularly good spokeswoman for the Movement, a nice antidote to the newspapers’ idea of what a suffragist looked like. And you could tell she was intelligent, cultured. She was supposed to know everything about music, the works of all the famous composers. She certainly knew how to charm. Once, when she was at the podium, she had looked down at Cora, right into her eyes, and smiled as if they were friends.
“I don’t really know her,” Cora said. She looked back out through the blurred windshield, at people ducking out from a streetcar, running for cover. Alan had taken a streetcar to work, so she could have the Ford.
“Then I’ll inform you. Myra Brooks is a tiresome snob.” Viola turned to Cora with a little smile, the ostrich plume grazing her chin. “I’ll give you the latest example: she just sent a note to the secretary of our club. Apparently, Madame Brooks is looking for someone to accompany one of her daughters to New York this summer. The older one, Louise, got into some prestigious dance school there, but she’s only ?fteen. Myra actually wants one of us to go with her. For over a month!” Viola seemed pleasantly outraged, her cheeks rosy, her eyes bright. “I mean, really! I don’t know what she’s thinking. That we’re the help? That one of us will be her Irish nanny?” She frowned and shook her head. “Most of us have progressive husbands, but I can’t imagine any one of them would spare a wife for over a month so she could go to New York City, of all places. Myra herself is too busy to go. She has to lie around the house and play the piano.”
Cora pursed her lips. New York. She felt the old ache right away. “Well. I suppose she has other children to look after.”
“Oh, she does, but that’s not it. She doesn’t take care of them. They’re motherless, those children. Poor Louise goes to Sunday school by herself. The instructor is Edward Vincent, and he picks her up and takes her home every Sunday. I heard that right from his wife. Myra and Leonard are alleged Presbyterians, but you never see them at church, do you? They’re too sophisticated, you see. They don’t make the other children go either.”
“That speaks well of the daughter, that she makes the effort to go on her own.” Cora cocked her head. “I wonder if I’ve ever seen her.”
“Louise? Oh, you would remember. She doesn’t look like anyone else. Her hair is black like Myra’s, but perfectly straight like an Oriental’s, and she wears it in a Buster Brown.” Viola gestured just below her ears. “She didn’t bob it. She had it cut like that when they moved here years ago. It’s too short and severe, a horrible look, in my opinion, not feminine at all. But even so, I have to say, she’s a very pretty girl. Prettier than her mother.” She smiled, leaning back in her seat. “There’s some justice in that, I think.”
Cora tried to picture this black-haired girl, more beautiful than her beautiful mother. Her gloved hand moved to the back of her own hair, which was dark, but not remarkably so. It certainly wasn’t perfectly straight, though it looked presentable, she hoped, pinned up under her straw hat. Cora had been told she had a kind, pleasant face, and that she was lucky to have good teeth. But that had never added up to striking beauty. And now she was thirty-six.
“My own girls are threatening to cut their hair,” Viola said with a sigh. “Foolish. This bobbing business is just a craze. When it’s over, everyone who followed the lemmings over the cliff will need years to grow their hair out. A lot of people won’t hire girls with bobbed hair. I try to warn them, but they won’t listen. They just laugh at me. And they have their own language, their own secret code for them and their friends. Do you know what Ethel called me the other day? She called me a wurp.That’s not a real word. But when I tell them that, they laugh.”
“They’re just trying to rattle you,” Cora said with a smile. “And I’m sure they won’t really bob their hair.” Really, it seemed unlikely. The magazines were full of short-haired girls, but in Wichita, bobs were still a rarity. “I do think it looks good on some girls,” Cora said shyly. “Short hair, I mean. And it must feel cooler, and lighter. Just think—you could throw all your hairpins away.”
Viola looked at her, eyebrows raised.
“Don’t worry. I won’t do it.” Cora again touched the back of her neck. “I might if I were younger.”
The rain was coming down faster, rapping hard on the roof of the car.
Viola crossed her arms. “Well, if my girls do cut their hair, I can tell you now, it won’t be so they can throw away hairpins. They’ll do it to be provocative. To look provocative. That’s what passes for fashion these days. That’s what young people are all about now.” She sounded suddenly stricken, more confused than indignant. “I don’t understand it, Cora. I raised them to have propriety. But both of them are suddenly obsessed with showing the world their knees. They roll their skirts up after they leave the house. I can tell by the waistbands. I know they defy me. They roll their stockings down, too.” She gazed out into the rain, lines branching beneath her eyes. “What I don’t know is why, what’s going on in their little heads, why they don’t care about the message they’re sending. When I was young, I never felt the need to show the general public my knees.” She shook her head. “Those two cause me more grief than all four of my boys. I envy you, Cora. You’re lucky to only have sons.”
Maybe, Cora thought. She did love the very maleness of the twins, their robust he...
Product details
- ASIN : B0072NWKQK
- Publisher : Riverhead Books (June 5, 2012)
- Publication date : June 5, 2012
- Language : English
- File size : 2296 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 377 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #50,816 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #236 in Biographical Fiction (Books)
- #248 in Romance Literary Fiction
- #312 in U.S. Historical Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Laura Moriarty received her master's degree from the University of Kansas and was awarded the George Bennett Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy. The author of The Center of Everything, The Rest of Her Life, and While I'm Falling, she lives in Lawrence, Kansas.
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Set in the early 1920s, a Kansas woman chaperones a very talented, headstrong and beautiful 15 year-old dancer (Louise Brooks) to New York City for the summer. One is looking towards the future - what it will bring (and trying to manipulate it) and one is revisiting the past (and trying to manipulate it).
The writing is extremely detailed which I like. I feel an intimate part of every scene, every event, and every character. The sense of place is extraordinary - the orphanage, the train ride, the Kaufman farm, Wichita, Kansas, Cora’s home, NYC - very detailed and precisely written.
A story of identity. A story of evolution - Cora and her core values developing and maturing. A story of ordinary people living their lives - with secrets and lies, high and low points, joys and frustrations and sorrows and (always) kindness.
I liked the author’s list of books and documents she read while working on this book.
All the characters ‘spoke to me’, even Louise. I felt much affected by the Kaufman’s. They were particularly kind and courageous in their quiet, humble way.
If you are a fan of detailed, personal, period writing, you will like this book.
The main character, Cora, has become one of my favourite female fictional characters, as she lives out her journey with courage, dignity and integrity. The characterisation is impeccable, as there are no villains, although many of the characters are weak and flawed. They personify the struggle to live within the context of your times, with its hypocrisies and unbreakable rules. (At least not openly breakable!)
Cora and her family set up an extraordinary compromise to live and love in peace within their own community. This is a beautiful, heartbreaking book, easy to read, but extremely thought-provoking.
The disappointing aspect of this book is that it seems to go on for a few too many chapters. The author misses a natural finishing place and cannot seem to stop until every main character has died of old age. For a truly enjoyable read, skip the last few chapters!
Cora's story is very well rendered and while I grew tired of her tendency to be scathingly judgmental, stunningly short-sighted & severely lacking in imagination, I appreciated where she was coming from. Her life was the personification of unconventional & she knew it but she worked a good bit of her life trying to craft a perfect facade & trying to forget or deny what was actually so. Given the time in which she grew up & lived when we meet her in the story, she has good reason to keep at it. But bit by bit, things gnaw at her & we see her change as she grows while on this trip to NYC. She's seeking to find herself. Not just where & who she came from but also who she is now & hopefully, who she can become. It's a very poignant story & I must admit that I was most emotionally invested in the Kaufmans & Mother Kaufman in particular. That Cora was so in touch with the knowledge that she was loved by her adoptive parents & had such a sweet relationship with Mother Kaufman just got me every time (the letter that Mother Kaufman had written to the sisters at the orphanage just about did me in). I did feel a bit of cynical glee when Cora finds her birth mother & the parallels to Cora's skilled lifetime of facade building. I was glad that Cora was so put off & bothered. There are other emotional hallmark moments in the story & made Cora's more annoying turns tolerable. Louise wasn't entirely wrong when she tagged Cora as a rube. Even when I wanted to throttle her, I still rooted for her.
My only problem with the book was the last third (& that's what takes my rating from 5 to 4 stars). It spanned many, many years & ran through future developments in Cora's life with her family mostly. It was good to know how her trip had lasting change in her life but it all felt a bit disjointed. It wasn't told in the cohesive narrative that the first two thirds of the book. The added parts of Louise & her fate along with her mother's really felt unnecessary. As I wrote at the outset, I wasn't that connected to Louise so it felt like a lot of dressed up info-dump and wasn't terribly interesting.
And somewhere around the 90% mark I began to feel that the story was already done. Cora changed & the world was changing still around her. It was just her insight on the times & I think it could have been wrapped up a lot sooner. Though I did very much enjoy reading about Alan & Raymond. All of the threads of morality & mores were some of my favorite aspects of the book. I was glad to see among other things, The Purity Myth in the author's Acknowledgments. Overall this was a good book that I enjoyed & wonderful for a weekend trip or while passing time at the airport. I would read another by Laura Moriarty.
Top reviews from other countries
Well written, good character description, great description of society in the 1920’s.
Feeling proud to be her mother..
All r gem of their mother ... unbelievable, superb writers , the expression made tears flow from eyes...
GOD BLESS ALL..
I have recommended it to so many people since I finished it, and there is a small queue forming of people who are borrowing it from me. The language is beautiful, AND THERE ARE NO ANNOYING AMERICANISMS!!!!
If you are looking for a good book that will make you think, feel and wonder then this is it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!