The Chaperone, Laura Moriarty
The Chaperone, Laura Moriarty
14 Rating(s)
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The Chaperone

Author: Laura Moriarty

Narrator: McGovern Elizabeth

Unabridged: 13 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 06/05/2012


Synopsis

Made into a feature film by the creators of Downton Abbey, The Chaperone is a New York Times-bestselling novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in the 1920s and the summer that would change them both.

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.

About The Author

Laura Moriarty is the author of the national bestseller The Chaperone as well as The Center of EverythingThe Rest of Her Life, and While I’m Falling. She received her master's degree from the University of Kansas and was awarded the George Bennett Fellowship for creative writing at Phillips Exeter Academy. Moriarty lives in Lawrence, Kansas.Elizabeth McGovern is a popular American television, film, and theater actor, and musician. McGovern was born in Evanston, Illinois, and educated at the Juilliard School. McGovern is perhaps best known for her role in in the adaptation of the E.L. Doctorow novel Ragtime, for which she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In addition to success on the big screen, McGovern has gained great acclaim from her performance in the hit series Downton Abbey. She has also appeared in Once Upon a Time in America, Racing with the Moon, Lovesick, The Handmaid's Tale, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and many more.


Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Julie on 2013-08-12 20:08:11

Loved the references to Wichita

Goodreads review by Sabrina

When one reads the name of Louise Brooks on the jacket of a book, one assumes that the book will be filled with tales of the glamorous silent movie star who went to seed too fast but remained proud and arrogant till her death. The fact that the name of the book is The Chaperone hinted to me that the......more

A historical fiction book about a woman who chaperoned Louise Brooks(who becomes a silent movie star and an icon of her generation) to NYC to go to a professional dance studio in 1922. The story spans the early 1900s through the Vietnam War. The chaperone, 36 year old Cora, takes Louise to NYC becau......more

Ein großartiges Buch! Ich muss leider sagen, dass ich bisher erstaunlich wenige Bücher gelesen habe, deren Geschichte in den 1920er Jahren spielt. Ich frage mich, warum!? Diese Zeit war so aufregend und faszinierend, dass ich gerne mehr darüber lesen möchte. „Das Schmetterlingsmädchen“ spielt in die......more


Quotes

“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