The Chaperone (Hardback) By (author) Laura Moriarty

Full bibliographic data for The Chaperone

Title

The Chaperone

Authors and contributors

By (author) Laura Moriarty

Physical properties

Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 371
Width: 160 mm
Height: 231 mm
Thickness: 36 mm
Weight: 590 g

Audience

General/trade

Language

English

ISBN

ISBN 13: 9781594487019
ISBN 10: 1594487014

Classifications

BISAC category code: FIC041000
BISAC category code: FIC019000
Dewey: 813/.6
BISAC category code: FIC014000
BICMainSubject: FA
Nielsen BookScan Product Class: F2.3
Dewey: 813.6
Dewey: FIC

Publisher

Riverhead Books

Imprint name

Riverhead Books

Publication date

05 June 2012

Publication City/Country

New York, NY/US

Review quote

""The Chaperone" is the enthralling story of two women . . . and how their unlikely relationship changed their lives. . . . 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."--"O, The Oprah Magazine " "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. . . . A mesmerizing take on women in this pivotal era."--"Vogue " "With her shiny black bob and milky skin, Louise Brooks epitomized silent-film glamour. But in Laura Moriarty's engaging new novel "The Chaperone," Brooks is just a hyper-precocious and bratty 15-year-old, and our protagonist, 36-year-old Cora Carlisle, has the not-easy mission of keeping the teenager virtuous while on a trip from their native Kansas to New York City. After a battle of wills, there's a sudden change of destiny for both women, with surprising and poignant results."--"Entertainment Weekly" "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. . . . . Brooks's may be the novel's marquee name, but the story's heart is Cora's. 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."--"San Francisco Weekly" "Film 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. As Cora struggles to tame Louise's free spirit, she finds herself moving past the safety of her own personal boundaries. In thi

Main description

The New York Times bestseller and the USA Today #1 Hot Fiction Pick for the summer, The Chaperone is a captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in 1922 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.