The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
Cora Carlisle is the housewife in Wichita, Kansas in the 1920s. And for all anyone knows, there's not much more to her story than that. But one summer, she volunteers to accompany teenage Louise Brooks (future silent movie star) to New York for the summer as a chaperone while Louise is studying dance. And we find out that there's a lot more to Cora than meets the eye. This is a fascinating look at how the roles of women have changed over the years--and indeed how much life changed over the course of the 20th century. (Cora herself marvels at how she rode in a horse-drawn cart as a child and in an airplane as an adult.) We also learn quite a bit about the tumultuous life of the beautiful but mercurial Louise Brooks.
The writing is so beautiful and the characters were depicted so well that they actually came to life for me. I was easily transported back to a time when women's knees could cause scandal, which is not an easy feat given today's society.
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Cleo Rogers (Plumber Puyallup)
It made me want to learn more about Louise Brooks, an actress I had sort of vaguely heard about, but about whom I didn't really know much. Thanks for the comments. J.
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