A review by celestelipkes
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

2.0

I'm ALL about Lorrie Moore's short stories, but this novel is a train wreck. I skimmed the last 20 pages; I just couldn't make myself finish. The novel feels like a series of unfocused short stories and, in an attempt to hit every hot-button topic of the 21st century (race! war! organic farming! adoption! post-9/11 trauma!), the book says very little about a whole lot. Characters of great promise are picked up, tossed around a bit, and thrown out of the plot (via convenient death, deportation, what have you) when Moore gets bored with them. The writing itself is often, as I expected, incredibly clever and beautiful. But that doesn't save the book--not by a long shot.