I am the kind of person who is absolutely bereft if I don’t have something on hand to read at all times. Be it a classic work of literature or a celebrity gossip magazine, I am just happy to have some form of the written word in my hand. So when I recently traveled to New York, I had a book at the ready in my tote bag. Which book occupied me for the duration of my plane ride? The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty. It is partially set in New York, so I figured it would be a great read for my trip. Luckily, I was not disappointed.
The story involves two women who could not be more different. Fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks, the silent-film star of the 1920s and 30s, and Cora, her voluntary chaperone, embark on a summer trip to New York, where Louise will study at the avant-garde Denishawn school of dance. Louise is strikingly beautiful and possesses an equally striking wit for a young woman of her age. She is willful to say the least, and Cora realizes from the moment they step on the train to New York that her charge does not subscribe to the same moral standards that Cora blindly accepts and even promotes. As Cora desperately tries to defend Louise’s honor as a young woman, Louise boldly disregards Cora’s efforts and manages to thwart her quite a few times. Every time Cora lets Louise out of her sights, Louise runs off to shamelessly flirt with an older man or tries to get away with wearing rouged cheeks and lips in public. While Cora never ceases to be frustrated by Louise’s appalling behavior, she did not volunteer to chaperone Louise merely to interject some much needed mothering in the girl’s routine. Cora has some questions that can only be answered by a trip to New York, questions whose answers change her life in ways she could never have fathomed.
Moriarty’s work of historical fiction delivers a poignant story with rich character development and takes the reader into a past where historical events help to shape and enhance each character’s intrinsic values. Readers of Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife and Rules of Civility by Amor Towles will also enjoy this beautifully written story of two very different women who actually share a hunger for more in life.
by Anna
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