A Gate At The Stairs
by Lorrie Moore
Bond Street Books, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-66824-8
322 pages
Hardcover
Fiction
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Lorrie Moore is considered by many to be one of the finest literary authors in America. She claims to want to write “books to give people a literary experience of substance and beauty.” But Moore also admits such a book can entertain. A Gate At The Stairs is the only piece I have read of Moore’s body of work (she has published many short stories and a few previous novels), yet I can confirm she does, indeed, provide substance and beauty. But there is so much more…
A Gate At The Stairs is a story about a 20-year-old rural woman trying to find herself, and it is told completely from her point of view. Completely is the exact word needed here. Take a look at the room you are in; now describe one object, in complete physical, emotional and symbolic terms; now do the same thing for everything you see: weather, light, furniture, people, even yourself. This is how we travel through Tassie Keltjin’s life and A Gate At The Stairs.
The journey is a deceptive one. On the surface we have Tassie, a country girl trying to carve out a life as a college student in the city. But through her eyes, which are well-practiced at observing, we encounter profound emotional and psychological snapshots of a dying marriage, the dark underbelly of adoption, uncomfortable parental realities, the insidiousness of racism in daily life, a family that appears to be dysfunctional but is actually a knife-edged example of any of our lives, and an innocent first love that was never real and is brutally ended by the fallout of 9/11.
Always deeply descriptive, often funny, sometimes brutal and filled with all kinds of beauty, A Gate At The Stairs is a rich metaphor for what lies hidden behind a simple, broken part of a whole that goes forever unrepaired.
This is not a quick read, but it does entertain. Gate At The Stairs is also substantial. And as for beauty? Throughout the sadness, the love and, eventually, the tragedies of life, Moore’s talented hand and eye provides as much beauty as the reader is willing to see.
Lorrie Moore is a Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A Gate At The Stairs is her first novel released in well over a decade. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait so long for this brilliant author’s next piece of long fiction.
Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye
Tags: A Gate At The Stairs, Author Lorrie Moore, Independent Reviews, Literay Fiction, Novel, Reviewed by Clayton Bye