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3.16 AVERAGE
3.16 AVERAGE
This is third book I've read by Lorrie Moore, first novel. One thing to know about Ms. Moore is that she has a very strong and and particular authorial voice. If you can't abide that, you aren't going to like her. Even if you can abide it, it doesn't always work (see: [b:Self Help|90872|Self-Help Stories|Lorrie Moore|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1193938034s/90872.jpg|420965]). Here, it really works.
[b:A Gate at the Stairs|6076387|A Gate at the Stairs|Lorrie Moore|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255637990s/6076387.jpg|6252965] is the coming of age story of Tassie, a 20-year-old Midwestern college student. She's a self-professed "farmer's daughter," pretty naive about the world, but forging her way into adulthood with lots of puns and bad jokes (as a Lorrie Moore protagonist does). I found her story funny, touching, and in some instances almost unbearably sad.
[b:A Gate at the Stairs|6076387|A Gate at the Stairs|Lorrie Moore|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255637990s/6076387.jpg|6252965] is the coming of age story of Tassie, a 20-year-old Midwestern college student. She's a self-professed "farmer's daughter," pretty naive about the world, but forging her way into adulthood with lots of puns and bad jokes (as a Lorrie Moore protagonist does). I found her story funny, touching, and in some instances almost unbearably sad.
As I read this book I grew more and more invested in the lives of Sarah and Tassie. I loved their ever changing relationship with each other and the journey they were on together. When tradegy strikes Sarah's household the story shifts and is about the everyday mundane life of Tassie. It was at that point that I no longer cared for the story. It's like Tassie was no one without Sarah and Mary Emma.
I liked it! It was farcical and indulgent, but I feel like that was part of the point, and it's part of what made the writing beautiful. It's a risky book and not all of the risks pay off, but I enjoyed it and I enjoyed occupying the narrator's mind for 300 pages.
AMAZING. Really kept with me afterwards, too. (Slightly depressing, but still very great.)
What I enjoyed most about this book, especially at first, was about how true to life it was. Tassie's many rambling tangents reminded me of my own wandering mind and for that I liked them. It was just when the book became precisely the opposite--unrealistic and dreamlike, if not nightmarish at times–-when I started to dislike it. Once I got halfway through the book, it almost seemed as if Moore was trying too hard to avoid being cliche and took a step too far into the bizarre. Ultimately, this book needed to decide whether it wanted to be realistic fiction or not, because it was strangely straddling a line in between, and it left me feeling very unsettled and dissatisfied. I had expected it to be a story of learning about the love that comes unexpectedly from babysitting others' children, and the struggles of adoption, and while a majority of the book--the best parts--focused on that, it left all of those realms very rough and unfinished. The book was strongest in its telling of the relationship between Tassie and Emmie, and I wish it could've stayed centered more in that as I'd expected it to.
With all that said, it is an original, surprising book with extraordinarily beautiful sections of musing about life and growing up. I was very interested in the many subjects it brushed upon: personal awakening while in college, farming families, military families, adoption, and babysitting, but I just wish it could've identified its center before getting deemed complete and releasable.
With all that said, it is an original, surprising book with extraordinarily beautiful sections of musing about life and growing up. I was very interested in the many subjects it brushed upon: personal awakening while in college, farming families, military families, adoption, and babysitting, but I just wish it could've identified its center before getting deemed complete and releasable.
sad
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I like Lorrie Moore's short stories so I really wanted to like this novel, but no. The bones of the book is good. Her relationship with her employer is very realistic and the dynamics between the two of them and the baby are very realistic and interesting. The husband is an interesting villain but completely without any nuance. Her brother seems a little outside the story, but okay, whatever. But the worst part in the story the boyfriend. He would have been so much better without the (sort of a spoiler alert) dramatic twist. Totally over the top and not realistic at all. Finally, the ending where she addresses the reader directly is not sassy or cute, it's awful.
When I read Heather O'Neil's The Girl who was Saturday Night earlier this year, I thought that I had read one of the best coming of age stories but Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs has pipped it by a bit.
Tassie, a first year college student, decides to take on a babysitting job in order to make some money. Little does she know that the family who hires her are not exactly as they seem (no they aren't murderers or anything like that - this book isn't like that)
The novel wins at every level. First of all it is funny. I enjoyed reading Tassie's wry observations of life and it's little ironies. I also enjoyed the philosophical interludes. This is something Moore does a lot of in her short fiction but in novel form it works better. Ever thought that the type of socks you wear are an extension of your existence? well Moore manages to do that.
The characters are fantastic - realisitic, with both their good and bad traits and weirdly as Tassie learns her life lessons, the book becomes warmer, I won't say feel good but it does come close.
Ultimately A Gate at the Stairs is - at least for me - how life can surprise a person. A lot of the plot does deal with appearance and reality, as Moore is a skilled writer, she manages to do this subtly without hammering any points in a blatant overly symbolic way. For a novel with a basic plot it's exploration of feelings is complex and makes this book a pleasure to read AND you get a couple of laughs in between.
What an odd little book this was! It was beautifully written and kept my attention throughout, but the plot was weak and the characters not really likable or interesting, yet, I still enjoyed it. So take that for what it is worth!