A Gate at the Stairs
A Gate at the Stairs
by Moore, Lorrie
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Publishers Weekly Review

A Gate at the Stairs

Publishers Weekly


(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Moore (Anagrams) knits together the shadow of 9/11 and a young girl's bumpy coming-of-age in this luminous, heart-wrenchingly wry novel-the author's first in 15 years. Tassie Keltjin, 20, a smalltown girl weathering a clumsy college year in "the Athens of the Midwest," is taken on as prospective nanny by brittle Sarah Brink, the proprietor of a pricey restaurant who is desperate to adopt a baby despite her dodgy past. Subsequent "adventures in prospective motherhood" involve a pregnant girl "with scarcely a tooth in her head" and a white birth mother abandoned by her African-American boyfriend-both encounters expose class and racial prejudice to an increasingly less naOve Tassie. In a parallel tale, Tassie lands a lover, enigmatic Reynaldo, who tries to keep certain parts of his life a secret from Tassie. Moore's graceful prose considers serious emotional and political issues with low-key clarity and poignancy, while generous flashes of wit-Tessie the sexual innocent using her roommate's vibrator to stir her chocolate milk-endow this stellar novel with great heart. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved