This is my new favorite book. I can't express the depth of feeling I experienced while reading this. The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty is "inspired by the life of silent-film star Louise Brooks, the story of two women who could not be more different, and the summer that changed them both." Louise Brooks is truly a minor character in this story where we hear about a woman named Cora, and we see her live out her life from the age of 36 when she chaperoned Louise on a summer trip to New York, all the way to the golden rich ending.
I must have a thing for historical fiction novels, as this book is one in a long line of historical fictions that I've read this summer. I started out with Paris, moved on to Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies about Thomas Cromwell, and sped through Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. In a twist of ironic humor, Louise Brooks at one point remarks in The Chaperone to Cora that "in general, historical fiction bores me."
Similar to the novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, this book also takes place beginning in the 1920s. In the beginning, Cora seems to be a pleasant woman; she took part in the suffrage movement, despises the Ku Klux Klan, and is always polite and proper. She hears about an opportunity offered by the tiresome snob, Myra Brooks, for someone to chaperone her daughter, Louise, for summer in New York so she can attend a prestigious dance school. Cora immediately becomes interested for some peculiar reason, and despite talk of progressive husbands, Cora's friend is unsure that any husband would ever allow his wife to go off to New York alone. We know that Cora is conservative, 36, and has two sons. It is here in the start of the book we the theme for Cora's story ... time's changing and with the changing times changing ideas of what is acceptable in society. We hear these mothers discuss their children bobbing their hair and showing the world their knees and rolling down their stockings. "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." Cora herself still wears constricting corsets, which prevents her from being able to even pick up books that she drops. Cora may be lucky to have given birth to sons, but in a time of war the luck of having sons depends a lot on timing.
Cora remarks that at one point her grandniece scolds her about not calling people "colored" and how could anyone ever think of joining the Klan?! Cora reminds us that it was a different world where people were ignorant of the times. In 1922 Cora was a proper 36 year old with two sons, whereas we know that Zelda Fitzgerald was turning into a flapper and already had a 1 year old daughter she barely took care of. Times are a changing. Cora announces to her husband that she will be going to New York as the chaperone of the capricious young Louise Brooks. Cora is drawn to the adventure, just as Zelda Fitzgerald was, at the prospect of going to New York. Therein lies the uneasiness, however, of leaving home.
When Cora first meets the Brooks family officially, she sees that Louise has an artistic temperament. Remember that Zelda had alluded to the idea that artists are drawn to trouble, to punish themselves almost, and they push other people away from them because of their pride and egos. Opinions are formed during the meeting; the Brooks' carry a pretense of cultural sophistication and condescension, but we see immediately that Cora is caring and is truly the sophisticated one. Louise has blind ambition in her and Cora would like to put a check on her blunt rudeness, her unthinking pride and self entitlement. Louise at this point is only 15, one of those girls with bobs and blunt bangs, and harsh beauty.
Cora is more interesting than her snide, sneaky, tricky counterpart. Louise lacks a proper mother and is hungry for men and attention, always wanting to give her chaperone the slip. There are vast differences between the two. Cora is a woman who works for equality; Louise wants to be a woman but looks like a boy. Fashion dictates the attitudes of the times. Louise mocks the propriety of the 1920s and is looking forward to the end of prohibition, even though she's only a child.
In New York, Louise's dance teacher remarks that if you see a mother with that much thwarted ambition, she'll show you a daughter born for success. We know the Louise goes on to be successful for a time, but again the important part of this story is Cora. Her journey is one you can't help but want to experience, and her thoughts and words are so heartfelt and sincere that you can't help but like everything about her. Cora's purpose in going to New York is to find the answer to a secret that we don't immediately know, but come to find out. She's on a quest to discover who she is, and what she finds is not what she expected. Her own idea of propriety changes through her experience with Louise, her experiences with New York, love and life. "Maybe she was falling behind the times, as provincial and outmoded in her thinking as in her dress. Maybe she was like the old women who had told her generation that they were behaving unnaturally, bothering legislators and asking strangers in the street to sign petitions, trying to get the vote." At the same time that Cora's own idea of what it means for each generation to grow, she makes good points too that so many models and actresses of the day had gotten so thin, and that "all these girls had thrown away their corsets, claiming liberation, but apparently they weren't supposed to eat." Likewise, if we flash forward to the 1950s, the Cora of this time assures ladies, many of whom far younger than her, that "an integrated lunch counter ... was not the end of civilization, and integrated schools and theaters wouldn't be the end, either. It would be fine, she assured friends, thinking back to [a] night in New York. Really. It would be more than fine. She would owe this understanding to her time in New York, and even more to Louise. That's what spending time with the young can do - it's the big payoff for all the pain. The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend , and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also drag you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through." So you see this novel isn't so much about Louise Brooks as it is about what the young can do for the old. And how one trip can change the way you think, and live, and act for the rest of your lifetime.
Birth control, feminism, racism, equal rights, sexuality, "lewd cohabitation." This book is not only about a character that you will care about but it offers a heartfelt social commentary, a journey to understanding and appreciation. The book engulfs you in its misery and its sadness makes your chest ache and ribs crack open. You feel pity for a horribly damaged child that goes on to be a star and a simple woman who never seems to catch a break until finally she opens up her mind and heart and does.
The Chaperone is extremely well written with details you can feel and touch. It transports you to another time of complex morals at odds with one another and the dawning of the realization that change is inevitable. For once I won't reveal all the secrets of this books, because Cora's is a story you can't google. Read this book to find out about her, commiserate with her, love her, pity her, and laugh with her. See her save not only herself but those around her. Cora "lived too much of her life so stupidly, following nonsensical rules, as if she and he, as if anyone, had all the time in the world." It's a good thing that life can be long.
"Was it mad to at least try to live as one wished, or as close to it as possible? This life is mine, she would think sometimes. This life is mine because of good luck. And because I reached out and took it." This book touched me and was beyond what I expected it would turn out to be. Cora is everything you could ever want in a character, and this is everything you could ever want in a book.
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