With her shiny black bob and milky skin, Louise Brooks epitomized silent-film glamour. A mesmerizing take on women in this pivotal era. 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. In this layered and inventive story, Moriarty raises profound questions about family, sexuality, history, and whether it is luck or will-or a sturdy combination of the two-that makes for a wonderful life. The Chaperone is the enthralling story of two women.and how their unlikely relationship changed their lives. 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.
As Cora struggles to tame Louise's free spirit, she finds herself moving past the safety of her own personal boundaries. 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.įilm 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. Brooks's may be the novel's marquee name, but the story's heart is Cora's. 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.
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