In fact, Louise is a largely tangential character the novel, which is a solid written piece of what might be termed 'women's fiction', is really about the 'chaperone' of the title, a 36 year old married woman called Cora Carlisle, who accompanies the teenaged Louise to New York when she goes there to study dancing, and whose own life is unexpectedly changed in the process. Unusually for me, I bought Laura Moriarty's 'The Chaperone' on spec, mainly because I have liked the narrator, Elizabeth McGovern, as an actress for many years, and because, having read a biography of the film star Louise Brooks, one of the main characters, I was intrigued by the idea of a fictional treatment of her life. Most of the audiobooks I listen to tend to be classics or things I have already read since I often listen while doing housework, I find it helpful to know the story, and like to know I will enjoy listening to it before buying. It is here that Cora and her charge, Louise Brooks, take their first steps towards their dreams.Įvery little breeze seems to whisper 'Louise'.

It is here, in a time when illicit thrills and daring glamour sizzle beneath the laws of propriety that her life truly begins. It is here, under the bright lights of Broadway, in a time when prohibition reigns and speakeasies with their forbidden whispers behind closed doors thrive, that Cora finds what she has been searching for. This girl is hungry for stardom, and Cora is hungry for something she doesn't yet know.Ĭora will be many things in her lifetime - an orphan, a mother, a wife, a mistress - but in New York she is a chaperone and her life is about to change.

She is charged with the care of a stunning young girl with a jet-black fringe and eyes wild and wise beyond her 15 years. On a summer's day in 1922, Cora Carlisle boards a train from Wichita, Kansas, to New York City, leaving behind a marriage that's not as perfect as it seems and a past that she buried long ago.

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Laura Moriarty's The Chaperone, read by the actress Elizabeth McGovern, best-known for her role as Cora, Countess of Grantham, in the hit TV series Downton Abbey.

The chaperone by laura moriarty summary