![]() ![]() Cora Carlisle, a frumpy housewife, inexplicably volunteers, even though, to the Brooks’s sneering disbelief, she has never heard of Denishawn or any other New York craze. Fifteen-year-old Louise, a precocious dancer with an ambitious artiste mother, has been invited to take summer classes with the legendary New York dance troupe Denishawn, but she may go only with a proper chaperone. ![]() The year is 1922, and the place is Wichita, where a car with an electric starter is considered a luxury and the Ku Klux Klan prospers. In “ The Chaperone,” Laura Moriarty’s captivating and wise fourth novel, we meet Louise long before her arrival in Hollywood. In addition to the signature haircut, the frank sensuality of her dancer’s body and the world-weary expression in her huge brown eyes captured the dangerous recklessness of the New Woman. The silent-screen actress Louise Brooks, with her black Dutch-boy bob, has endured in popular culture as the most recognizable and iconic flapper. ![]()
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