by Lorrie Moore (Author)
With America quietly gearing up for war in the Middle East, twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin, a 'half-Jewish' farmer's daughter from the plains of the Midwest, has come to university - escaping her provincial home to encounter the complex world of culture and politics. When she takes a job as a part-time nanny to a couple who seem at once mysterious and glamorous, Tassie is drawn into the life of their newly-adopted child and increasingly complicated household. As her past becomes increasingly alien to her - her parents seem older when she visits; her disillusioned brother ever more fixed on joining the military - Tassie finds herself becoming a stranger to herself. As the year unfolds, love leads her to new and formative experiences - but it is then that the past and the future burst forth in dramatic and shocking ways. Refracted through the eyes of this memorable narrator, A Gate at the Stairs is a lyrical, beguiling and wise novel of our times.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 432
Edition: Open Market Edition
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 04 Mar 2010
ISBN 10: 0571249450
ISBN 13: 9780571249459
Book Overview: In her dazzling new novel - her first in over a decade - Lorrie Moore turns her eye on the anxiety and disconnection of modern America.
Prizes: Shortlisted for Orange Prize for Fiction 2010.