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somanybookstoread's review against another edition
5.0
This one I'd give four and 3/4, so I'll round up.
Lorrie Moore's prose is gorgeous. She somehow manages to tell an incredibly sad story with tremendous humor. That's no small feat! I read this book hungrily, loving the language just a bit more than the storyline. My only complaint is that I got so invested in the main storyline that I felt a bit cheated when it ended rather abruptly. Fortunately, Moore's prose is gorgeous enough to have kept me engaged anyway. I definitely recommend this one!
I have to preserve this excerpt of Moore's brilliant and funny prose that I love so much, so here it is:
"...I'd brought only one book, the Zen poems, and was finding their obliqueness fatiguing and ripe for parody. I decided instead to investigate the official Judeo-Christian comedy, and pulled the Gideon Bible from the nightstand drawer. I started at the beginning, day one, when God created the heavens and the earth and gave them form. There'd been no form before. Just amorphous blobbery. God then said let there be light, in order to get a little dynamic thing going between night and day, though the moon and stars and sun were not the generators of this light but merely a kind of middle management, supervisors, glorified custodians, since they were not created until later -- day four -- as can happen with bureaucracy, even of the cosmic sort. Still, I thought of all the songs that had been written about these belated moon and stars and sun, compared to songs about form. Not one good song about form! Sometimes a week just got more inspiring as it went along. Still, it was truly strange that there was morning and night on day one but the sun wasn't created until day four. Perhaps God didn't have a proofreader until, like, day forty-seven, but by that time all sorts of weird things were happening. Perhaps he was really, completely on his own until then, making stuff up and then immediately forgetting what he'd made up already..."
Lorrie Moore's prose is gorgeous. She somehow manages to tell an incredibly sad story with tremendous humor. That's no small feat! I read this book hungrily, loving the language just a bit more than the storyline. My only complaint is that I got so invested in the main storyline that I felt a bit cheated when it ended rather abruptly. Fortunately, Moore's prose is gorgeous enough to have kept me engaged anyway. I definitely recommend this one!
I have to preserve this excerpt of Moore's brilliant and funny prose that I love so much, so here it is:
"...I'd brought only one book, the Zen poems, and was finding their obliqueness fatiguing and ripe for parody. I decided instead to investigate the official Judeo-Christian comedy, and pulled the Gideon Bible from the nightstand drawer. I started at the beginning, day one, when God created the heavens and the earth and gave them form. There'd been no form before. Just amorphous blobbery. God then said let there be light, in order to get a little dynamic thing going between night and day, though the moon and stars and sun were not the generators of this light but merely a kind of middle management, supervisors, glorified custodians, since they were not created until later -- day four -- as can happen with bureaucracy, even of the cosmic sort. Still, I thought of all the songs that had been written about these belated moon and stars and sun, compared to songs about form. Not one good song about form! Sometimes a week just got more inspiring as it went along. Still, it was truly strange that there was morning and night on day one but the sun wasn't created until day four. Perhaps God didn't have a proofreader until, like, day forty-seven, but by that time all sorts of weird things were happening. Perhaps he was really, completely on his own until then, making stuff up and then immediately forgetting what he'd made up already..."
corteccia's review against another edition
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
anniebh's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
juliardye's review against another edition
1.0
I kept hoping this book was going to go somewhere. It didn't.
heatherg213's review against another edition
3.0
A Gate at the Stairs is the story of Tassie Keltjin,the daughter of a potato farmer in rural Wisconsin. In the days before 9-11, she is a college student At the University of Wisconsin in Troy, Wisconsin. Like most college students she is cash poor, and so she begins looking for a job to keep herself in clothes and food and heat. She applies to be the nanny for Sarah and Edward Thornwood-Brink, a couple in the process of adopting a biracial baby. From very early on Tassie can sense that something is not quite right with Sarah and Edward. Their manner is just-off from normal, their interactions are intimate and cold at the same time. Tassie never imagines, however, the secret that will come to affect her life and the life of the little girl, Mary-Emma. This novel is a strange, uncomfortable coming of age story, one that left me feeling unsettled, and unsure I really got what Moore was trying to convey.
Moore's writing is rich. Her language shows a depth of thought and a flair for metaphor greater than any other author I've read recently. There are long passages where Tassie is thinking about her life and events in the story that would be worthy of a circus contortionist in the way they bend and twist, making seemingly random connections into something meaningful. This was really interesting for the first three quarters of the novel, but over time I found myself wishing for a more straight-forward narrative. But then, about three quarters of the way through the novel is where I started to feel like the story I thought I was reading was not actually the story Moore was telling.
While most of the story revolves around Tassie's relationship with Sarah and Mary-Emma, there are other, seemingly disparate, stories woven throughout. Tassie has a secret relationship with a fellow student who turns out to belong to a fanatical Islamist organization. When he disappears from her life suddenly, I expected there to be some fall-out for her, but he just fades from the story. When she loses Mary-Emma, I expected there to be some resolution to that storyline, but we never hear what becomes of the little girl. The loss of her brother is the only one in which we get a sense of how that loss affected not just Tassie but her parents as well-and that is the last quarter of the book. The theme of loss is the only constant throughout the story, but it is only with that last loss that we see exactly how deeply Tassie feels her sorrow.
One thing that struck me about this book is all of the white liberal-guilt and angst portrayed by Moore through the interracial adoption group that Sarah and Edward become involved in. The conversations that Tassie overhears while playing upstairs with the children during their meetings are circular, in turns angry and defensive, and probably very authentic, despite seeming stereotypical. The themes never change, and most of the white parents seem to feel that their adoption of the black and biracial children is under-appreciated by people who question their ability to raise children of color. Complaints about people's comments on the street, or the advice they get from well-meaning people that end up sounding like back-handed compliments, are all fodder for their insecurity and self-pity. They bring up issues of race and class, even within liberal communities, that people believe have long been subdued by inclusiveness and acceptance. Moore seems to be pointing out the naivete of people who believe we have entered a post-racial era, where issues of race have mostly been addressed.
Moore's writing is rich. Her language shows a depth of thought and a flair for metaphor greater than any other author I've read recently. There are long passages where Tassie is thinking about her life and events in the story that would be worthy of a circus contortionist in the way they bend and twist, making seemingly random connections into something meaningful. This was really interesting for the first three quarters of the novel, but over time I found myself wishing for a more straight-forward narrative. But then, about three quarters of the way through the novel is where I started to feel like the story I thought I was reading was not actually the story Moore was telling.
While most of the story revolves around Tassie's relationship with Sarah and Mary-Emma, there are other, seemingly disparate, stories woven throughout. Tassie has a secret relationship with a fellow student who turns out to belong to a fanatical Islamist organization. When he disappears from her life suddenly, I expected there to be some fall-out for her, but he just fades from the story. When she loses Mary-Emma, I expected there to be some resolution to that storyline, but we never hear what becomes of the little girl. The loss of her brother is the only one in which we get a sense of how that loss affected not just Tassie but her parents as well-and that is the last quarter of the book. The theme of loss is the only constant throughout the story, but it is only with that last loss that we see exactly how deeply Tassie feels her sorrow.
One thing that struck me about this book is all of the white liberal-guilt and angst portrayed by Moore through the interracial adoption group that Sarah and Edward become involved in. The conversations that Tassie overhears while playing upstairs with the children during their meetings are circular, in turns angry and defensive, and probably very authentic, despite seeming stereotypical. The themes never change, and most of the white parents seem to feel that their adoption of the black and biracial children is under-appreciated by people who question their ability to raise children of color. Complaints about people's comments on the street, or the advice they get from well-meaning people that end up sounding like back-handed compliments, are all fodder for their insecurity and self-pity. They bring up issues of race and class, even within liberal communities, that people believe have long been subdued by inclusiveness and acceptance. Moore seems to be pointing out the naivete of people who believe we have entered a post-racial era, where issues of race have mostly been addressed.
cristella's review against another edition
4.0
This book is both hilarious and heartbreaking. It took a while for me to get through it after flying through about 2/3 of it. I won't give anything away but there are two rather devastating events toward the end of the novel. It's the first I've read by Lorrie Moore. Her writing here is marked by acute observation and strong imagery. Tassie Keljin is what you might annoyingly call 'quirky,' but not in an artificial way that I find in stories like those of Miranda July where I feel like she is trying to be as weird and amusing as possible. (I tried reading No One Belongs Here More than You , and felt like each story was trying to out-quirk the next.) I wouldn't recommend this to everyone because I found it put me in a rather melancholy mood at times, but there are some very humorous passages. Tassie's Mom is a riot as is here Dad. Loved the passage where her Mom is commenting on their small town's alleged visits from extraterrestrials.
amchica's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to love this book because Moore is a phenomenal writer, but her overabundance of metaphors and similes were just too distracting. The characters were not compelling and for 3/4 of the book, nothing was happening. There were too many major events that came out of the blue, and were then quickly dismissed. Every once in a while there was a sentence that made you want to cut it out of the book and paste it on the wall because Moore is that good at writing about the human condition, but the novel format just doesn't work for her. She should stick to short stories.
vikkiwarner's review against another edition
4.0
Devastating, raw, and beautifully written at all points. A painful book that offers small bits of redemption and a tenuous possibility for healing.
ridgewaygirl's review against another edition
4.0
A Gate at the Stairs is narrated by a Midwestern farmer's daughter and begins the year she gets a job as a babysitter for an older couple who are about to adopt. Tassie is in college, rooming with a girl who has disappeared into her boyfriend's life, leaving Tassie alone and a little lonely and willing to fill her life with the family she babysits for and to fall for the friendly Brazilian guy in her Sufism class. Lorrie Moore can write. Which means what happens in the book is almost beside the point, what with all the words being put into the right places. She's skilled at creating atmosphere, at heading off into short diversions that circle back into the story later on and at capturing the feeling of being caught between trying to appear as experienced and prepared as possible while really not knowing what to do. Set at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, there's a feeling of uncertainty, of suspicion of the people around you and of a divided country going to war.
This book defies easy summarization, with its divergences and multiple threads of plot. Tassie's a naive, but intelligent observer, and takes her time with the story she's telling, which, being the story of a period of time in her life, is less straight-forward and plot-driven, than it is meandering and, like memory, hurrying through some experiences while slowing down to peer at other events in detail.
This book defies easy summarization, with its divergences and multiple threads of plot. Tassie's a naive, but intelligent observer, and takes her time with the story she's telling, which, being the story of a period of time in her life, is less straight-forward and plot-driven, than it is meandering and, like memory, hurrying through some experiences while slowing down to peer at other events in detail.
sujuv's review against another edition
4.0
Much of this book consisted mainly of lovely writing without much happening, but the last 100 pages or so were so gripping that I gave the book a 4 instead of a 3. There was one section - those who read it will know what I'm talking about - that I couldn't get out of my mind even the morning after reading it, which is a good sign of a good book, in my opinion.