Thewanderingjew

It is 1922, Cora Carlisle, happily married in Wichita, but facing an empty nest, decides to be a chaperone for 15 year old Louise Brooks on her trip to New York City, where she will study with a renowned dance teacher for the summer. Cora’s husband, Alan, prefers that she doesn’t go; but he gives his consent. Louise Brooks is hoping to be invited to join the dance company so she may continue to train for a professional life.
The book begins during the time of prohibition, of racial prejudice and inequality, of homophobia, and of rigid rules governing women’s behavior. Their dress is prim, they don’t smoke in public, they rarely work and if financially able, they entertain themselves doing charity work, needlework, raising a family and maintaining their homes.
Louise is the daughter of a not very maternal mother, who would have preferred no children and would like to live vicariously through her daughter, and a father who often mocks her achievements. Although she is young, intelligent and an accomplished dancer, she is also willful, defiant, disobedient and promiscuous.
Cora was an orphan. She was brought up by nuns for the first few years of her life under strict and rigid guidance. When she is taken from the orphanage and sent to Ohio by the Children’s Aid Society, she begins a new life, with a loving family. When a dreadful accident takes her new parents from her, she is once again set adrift, but by now, she is a teenager and capable of being on her own. A lawyer comes to her aid, pro bono, when her ability to inherit is questioned by the other children from her adoptive father’s former marriage. Alan Carlisle not only helps her get what is rightfully hers, but he marries her, as well. His family embraces her despite her uncertain past and heritage, but requests that it be kept secret. Cora soon learns that her relationship with her husband will be a challenging one.
On the train trip to New York, chaperoning Louise, Cora is immediately put to the test. Louise disobeys her and sneaks off. Cora tries to be amenable, not judgmental, but her patience is often tried on this trip and on their brief stay in New York. Louise likes to push the envelope and her lack of prudence will often do her in and have a negative effect on her future life.
When she gets to New York, in addition to chaperoning Louise, Cora wants to try and find her roots. She knows nothing of her family. When she visits the orphanage where she spent her early years, The Home for Friendless Girls, to try and find out information about her background, she meets the German handyman, Joseph. Because of circumstances beyond his control, Joseph finds himself penniless, and he and his daughter now live in the same orphanage, where he works in exchange for his and her room and board.
While in New York, Cora learns far more from Louise’s willfulness than Louise learns from Cora’s rigid rules. Louise’s openness exposes Cora’s mind to a different world, including the freedom of the city and a more independent lifestyle. Although she is shocked by Louise’s behavior, she is also thrilled by the new things she is discovering.
When Louise is accepted by the studio and leaves to study dance more seriously, Cora returns home to Wichita. She brings with her, two guests, Joseph and his daughter Greta. He is supposedly her long, lost widower brother and her young niece.
The nine plus decades we travel with Cora are filled with enlightenment and change. Her children grow up, another war occurs, love blossoms in the strangest of places, racial equality improves, homophobia is no longer acceptable, prohibition ends, birth control becomes common place and strict rules of morality are reversed.
The novel, based on the very real life of the beautiful Mary Louise Brooks, an accomplished dancer and movie star, almost feels like a coming of age story for Cora, the very sheltered adult, not Louise, who has been exposed to far too much abuse and far too little attention and guidance, as she takes pleasure in moving beyond accepted limits. Perhaps it is also the coming of age story of a town, a country and a people, learning how to be more humane; perhaps it is even the coming of age story of the world, as it opens up and begins to accept more equality for all.