‘A Gate at the Stairs’ by Lorrie Moore
Tassie Keltjin learns many of life’s hard lessons in Lorrie Moore’s new novel, “A Gate at the Stairs.”
Tassie, 20, gets hired as a nanny by a couple who are trying to adopt. The wife, Sarah Brink, asks Tassie to be a part of the whole experience by accompanying them when they go and meet potential birth mothers — the beginning of many experiences that will erase Tassie’s small-town farm girl naivete.
After a child is placed with the Brinks, Tassie takes on the role as primary caregiver. Sarah Brink is a bit neurotic and obsessed with her job, while her husband is remote and less involved. Tassie, a bit disillusioned, focuses on the little girl, though, trying to do her best.
I felt sorry for Mary-Emma and all she was going through, every day waking up to something new. Though maybe that was what childhood was. But I couldn’t quite recall that being the case for me. And perhaps she would grow up with a sense that incompetence was all around her, and it was entirely possible I would be instrumental in that. She would grow up with love, but no sense that the people who loved her knew what they were doing — the opposite of me — and so she would become suspicious of people, suspicious of love and the worth of it. Which in the end, well, would be a lot like me. So perhaps it didn’t matter what happened to you as a girl: you ended up the same.
As Tassie’s story continues, she’s a witness to racism, violence, infidelity and, in general, the failure of people to live up to any standard at all. Moore tries to balance this darkness with moments of levity, but these are few and often are lost in the pages and pages of Tassie’s inner thoughts. Moore toggles between Tassie’s school life and her life back on the farm. Neither are fully explored, seeming more like random stops at horror shows as Tassie loses her innocence.
Moore’s fans might still be happy with “A Gate at the Stairs” as it’s her first novel in more than a decade, but for many readers it probably will be a bit tedious, and for a coming-of-age novel that held so much potential, that’s ultimately disappointing.
