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tonitrap 's review for:
A Gate at the Stairs
by Lorrie Moore
Lorrie Moore's writing has an unsettling ability to make you feel as if you are witnessing the disassembling of the human psyche and emotion in a slow day to day manner. The language and structure in A Gate at the Stairs is jarring and takes the reader to the edge and back. The story is real in its description of youth and adulthood meeting at the precipice in the shape of the protagonist, Tassie. Tassie is in her sophomore year in college and is experiencing her eyes and mind being opened to a new world in academia while,simultaneously, feeling a certain restlessness and disdain toward the small, farm town existence she has moved away from. I felt that Moore hit perfect notes in describing this rite of passage in life. The story is also unreal in its heartbreak. I found myself almost averting my eyes in certain passages, wary of meeting the pain I would find there head-on. Moore's narrative structure only added to the fraught tensions in these scenes. Admittedly, the structure was distracting on occasion but, in general, the story is gripping and well worth the read.