The Chaperone

I read a fair amount of historical fiction but not much that actually features a character who was a world-famous celebrity. Admittedly, I know precious little about Louise Brooks (even after reading this) & I think that lent to my enjoyment of the story. I wasn't looking for a deep accounting of her life or to compare what was already known. Louise is simply the means in this story for us to journey with Cora finding herself. Honestly, Louise needn't have been "Louise" for me to have enjoyed the journey. She's not much used & so seemed like an afterthought for much of the story, that I didn't connect deeply to her & in the end, didn't feel she added more to the story than some unknown, random sniping teenage girl (read: choose a weeknight & turn on the CW or an ABC Family show) would have. That Louise toted Schopenhauer didn't really make her more interesting or relevant to the story.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.

I'm going to try not to spoil anything, but can't promise. So be careful. If you truly want to be surprised, just read the jacket info and leave it at that.At the beginning of this story, I did not like either Louise or Cora. Louise is just a brat, though a lot of that gets explained in the book. This story is really not about her.Cora is the protagonist of this book. We learn she is the wife of a lawyer, mother of 18 yo twins, with unstated reasons why she should not have to worry about getting permission from her husband to spend a month or more going from Wichita, Kansas to NYC, NY in order to chaperone a young Louise Books, who was a silent film star of the 1920's. This story starts in 1922.I believe there are certain personality traits that transcend the time in which one lives. For examples, being judgmental, open-minded, having a tendency to bigotry of any kind, being the kind of person who gives away her power to others because she cares what they think. Others will certainly disagree, saying that's the way it was back then. But I don't feel that way. By the age of Cora, 36, I knew how much I did not know and how little right I had to judge anyone. And I also knew that others' opinion of me didn't matter to me a whit. But to Cora, it ALL mattered. And I didn't like her very much for her smugness.Moving on, she has several profound experiences in NYC, there are flashbacks explaining why her life at home is the way it is, and frankly, my frustration with her grew. Thankfully, these experiences gave her the courage and bravery to do what she needed to do to make her life a much more pleasant place. And then I really fell for Cora.....Because all the rest of the stuff she had to endure WAS a product of the times in which she lived. She absolutely did the best she could, and better. Her world grew much larger and so did she, as a result.Backtracking, I felt that her pivotal point came during a very candid moment with Louise, in which Louise is quite drunk. One wishes Louise would have been so honest earlier in the story, but that wouldn't have worked given the timespan of the trip in NYC.The characters in this story are fascinating, living during a fascinating period in our history, prohibition. It was also nice to read a story about this time period in which the protagonist, while not wildy wealthy, at least is well off. It was interesting to read such little details like Louise paying $.25 for lunch, which included a good tip....Totally recommend this book for everyone and anyone, men and women, alike. It probably discusses issues not suitable for children under 12 or 13, depending on their parents views. If I say what those issues are, I'm giving away spoilers.....so I won't.But, this was a great and mesmerizing read.

Loved everything about this book.

Presque un siècle d'histoire américaine décrite au travers de l'histoire d'une jeune femme modeste sans problèmes apparents dans les années 30 aux Etats-Unis. Elle se retrouve mandatée pour accompagner une jeune fille qui est amenée à quitter sa petite ville de province pour New-York. Elles se retrouvent dans cette grande ville avec chacune leur ambition : la danse pour l'une, retrouver ses origines d'orphelines pour l'autre... et avec les mots de cette fiction, est dressé le tableau de l'Amérique des années 30 aux années 80 : de l'émancipation des femmes (cheveux courts, vêtements qui raccourcissent, comportements...), en passant par le Ku Klux Klan jusqu'à Harvey Milk...

Loved the characters. Each had there own story. Blood relationships don’t necessarily make a family.

Das Gesicht auf dem Cover der Taschenbuchausgabe gehört Louise Brooks. Ich muss gestehen, dass mir der Name vor "The Chaperone" überhaupt nichts gesagt hat. Ich fand die Person und ihre Geschichte aber so interessant, dass ich im Anschluss an den Roman noch allerhand über sie im Internet gelesen und mir sogar ihr eigenes Buch ("Lulu in Hollywood") bestellt habe.Eigentlich ist der Stummfilmstar aber nur eine Nebenfigur in diesem Roman. Protagonistin ist die titelgebende Anstandsdame Cora Carlisle, die die 15jährige Brooks von der Provinz zur Tanzausbildung nach New York begleitet. Auf den ersten Blick wirkt sie ein bisschen langweilig und für ihr Alter (Mitte 30) ziemlich altbacken. Nach und nach erfährt man aber mehr über sie: über ihre harte Kindheit, ihre schwierige Ehe, ihre Ängste, Träume und Wünsche für die Zukunft. Sie entpuppt sich als eine sehr komplexe Figur, die im Laufe der Geschichte ihr (für die damalige Zeit äußerst unkonventionelles) Glück findet.Die Geschichte spielt größtenteils Anfang der 1920er, und man erfährt sehr viel über das Leben und die Moralvorstellungen dieser Ära. Ich finde es immer ausgesprochen interessant, wenn man beim Lesen in eine ganz andere, fremde Zeit eintauchen darf. Viele Themen, die damals die Gemüter erregt haben, kommen zur Sprache und bilden den Hintergrund der Geschichte - etwa die Prohibition, der Erfolg 'schwarzer' Musik oder die zaghaften Anfänge weiblicher Selbstbestimmung.Die Geschichte wird aus Coras Perspektive erzählt, wobei zwischen die eigentliche Handlung immer wieder ein Blick in die Vergangenheit und gelegentlich auch in die Zukunft geworfen wird. Mir hat der Erzähl- und Sprachstil sehr gut gefallen. Ich habe mich relativ schnell in die Geschichte eingelesen und habe sie bis zum Schluss mit Spannung und ausgesprochen gern gelesen. Ein wirklich schöner Roman mit Figuren, die mich mehr als einmal überrascht haben.

Well written, a beautifully layered story. Loved it.

C'est un livre captivant avec deux histoires en parallèle, celle de Louise Brooks en filigrane, et son chaperon, Cora. Un regard sur L'Amérique des années 20 qui nous emmène du Kansas à New York. Facile à lire en anglais.