These changes in her life are the result of her increased confidence and self-knowledge, traits that she develops throughout the book. Cora also becomes an advocate for birth control access and charitable assistance to unwed mothers. Cora and Joseph remain discreet lovers for the rest of their lives, and Alan’s lover spends time in the Carlisle home as well. Louise is asked to become a permanent member of the dance company, and she stays in New York to continue her budding career. She brings Joseph and his young daughter back to her and Alan’s home in Wichita, where they all live together for decades. At the New York orphanage, she meets the home’s handyman, Joseph Schmidt, and the two become lovers. Cora gradually realizes that she’s sexually frustrated, and she longs for a romantic connection. Her birth father abandoned her mother before Cora was born, and her mother makes it clear that she doesn’t want a relationship with her illegitimate daughter, crushing Cora’s hopes of developing a relationship with her long-lost parents.Ĭora’s husband, Alan, is a closeted gay man, a revelation that results in a sexless marriage for more than a decade. She discovers the identity of her birth mother, and they meet once.

Cora has her own reasons for wanting to visit the city: She grew up in a New York orphanage before being sent to Kansas for adoption and wants to find out about her birth family.Ĭora undertakes the task of keeping the headstrong, unconventional Louise in line with 1920s notions of respectability while secretly investigating her own past. Louise has been accepted to a summer session at a prestigious dance school there and dreams of becoming famous. In 1922, Cora Carlisle, a 36-year-old wife and mother from Wichita, Kansas, volunteers to accompany 15-year-old aspiring dancer Louise Brooks to New York City for the summer. The Chaperone is set primarily in 1922 but includes flashbacks to the late 1800s/early 1900s and flash-forwards to the 1950s and 1960s.

3d comic tge chaperone