Publication Date: June 5, 2012
It’s 1922 and respectably married Cora chaperones a 15-year-old Louise Brooks to New York City for her multi-week training with and audition for the Denishawn School of Dancing. What Louise doesn’t know is that Cora’s earliest memories are of living in a home for girls in New York City and has taken the position with a hope of finding out more about where she has come from.
The Chaperone is not the story of Louise Brooks. She is a facilitator for the plot. Those facts that pertain to Brooks are incredibly well researched. Brooks did, indeed, travel to New York City for the opportunity highlighted. Much of what we see of Brooks, through Cora’s sometimes judgmental and sometimes fond gaze, is based on deep research of the actresses own account of her past as well as research done by others. Though Brooks often comes off, in the story, as a bit of a caricature, there are moments when she shines as a fully realized character.
Maggie’s father dies and friends and family of her mother encourage her to ask her mother about her past. When she does, Maggie learns of the struggles her mother (Lola) faced as a Jewish woman in Nazi-era Germany and the extreme odds she faced of survival when the Nazi’s literally came to the door in the form of the son of the woman hiding Lola and her sister, Heidi, in her attic.
Laura Lyons is a housewife in 1913 living with her family in an apartment in the New York Public Library where her husband is the superintendent. She enrolls in Columbia Journalism School and finds a new world outside of the library walls and herself where women have their own identity. When someone starts stealing rare books and her lifestyle is at risk, she has to make a choice.
Morag McGregor is sent to Scottish Court by her father in hopes that she will make a match or, at least, dampen her desire to get revenge on her neighbour, the Campbells. In a setting tense with religious and political strife will Morag sate her desire for revenge and return to her secret love who is waiting at home?