The Chaperone

by Laura Moriarty

This novel is about a woman whose life is changed when she agrees to be the chaperone for a willful fifteen year old girl, Louie Brooks.

Louise has been accepted into the Denishawn dance school  in New York for a dance course.  She hopes to turn the class into a career with the company,

Cora Carlisle doesn't really think about what she could be getting into being the chaperone for this headstrong girl.  She wants to go to New York for her own reasons.  We find out that Cora is in an unhappy marriage.  She has two twin sons and what appeared to be a loving husband.  However, once she had the twins she was told another pregnancy could be fatal for her.  Her caring husband agrees to sleep in a separate room.  She later finds out that her husband is gay and that she has only been a convenience for him -- allowing him to have a respetable life while carrying on a clandestine affair with his gay lover.  If his lifestyle and activites were known he would be ruined, put in jail or even worse.

Cora, an orphan who was adopted by a loving couple, wants to go to New York to find out about her birth parents.  Louise's Mom, who doesn't seem to be a very effective parent, is only too glad to be rid of her daughter.

She finds that Louise is very feisty, even wild.  One night Louisse sneaks off with a young man she has met and gets drunk.  After Cora berates her for her bad behaviour and what consequences would be Louise reveals that she is not a virgin, she was "deflourerd" when she was nine and as a teen had an affair with the loccal Sunday School Teacher

While Louise is at dance class Cora has gone to the orphange to get information but has been turned down-- they don't divulge parental information to their orphans.  Louise is befriended by a handyman who works at the orphanage and he lets her sneak intothe files where she finds an address of a woman who had written the orphanage asking about her welfare.  Louse writes the woman and later meets her briefly.  The woman is her mother and while she is glad Cora has had a good life she doesn't want to have anything more to do with her.  Louise is sad and bitter at the women's reaction and at the fact that she has a half brother and sister she will never meet.

Cora has a romantic encounter with the handyman which the nun's somehow find out about.  They toss him and his daughter out.  .  She is sad at the fact she has cost him her job and decides to invite him and his daughter to come live with her and her husband back in Kansas,  She pretends that the man is her brother and his daughter her niece.  Her husband isn't fooled but has to give in to her ruse an he has his own dirtly little secret.  The man and his daughter are welcomed into the community and Cora and the man continue thier love affair even after her husband dies.

As the years go by news of Louise Brooks, who got kicked out of the dance company, but who has become famous as a movie star, is watched with interest by Cora and the other people in Kansas who knew her when...  They also learn about her scandalous behaviour, divorces, decline of her popularily and eventual poverty -- they seem to gloat when she returns home to live with her parents.  However, Cora feels sorry for her and goes to her to tell her she feels she can rebound.  Louise leaves for New York but later they hear that she is just a rude drunk.  Howver many years later/ Cora learns that Louise is famous again and being praised for the memoir she has written and she is glad that she has again made a comeback.

This was a  very well written story.  The author did a great job of portraying the lives and personalities of the characters, especially the women, and the attitudes of the times.  She does a great job of portraying the disappointments in marriage faced by Cora and Louise's mother. Cora is faced with new things and has to deal with them, accept changes, change her opinions and ultimately take a risk for happiness.  This was an intriguing part of the story.