The New York Times bestseller and the USA Today Hot Fiction Pick for the summer The Chaperone isa captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in and the summer that would change them bothOnly 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 shersquos 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 foreverFor 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 isnrsquot what she anticipated she is liberated in a way she could not have imagined Over the course of Corarsquos relationship with Louise her eyes are opened to the promise of the twentieth century and a new understanding of the possibilities for being fully aliveDrawing on the rich history of the srsquos and beyondmdashfrom the orphan trains to Prohibition flappers and the onset of the Great Depression to the burgeoning movement for equal rights and new opportunities for womenmdashLaura Moriartyrsquos 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.
