A Gate at the Stairs

In the eight years since the World Trade Center towers fell, writers have creatively — and sometimes profoundly — woven the event’s existence into their novels. Most of these are set in New York and often use the events of 9/11 to highlight one of two themes: the ridiculous wastefulness of the late nineties, or the isolation of the modern world. Two successful examples include The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud and Netherland by Joseph O’Neill. Both are set in New York and use 9/11 as an event that immediately forces its characters to reflect and change.

In contrast, Lorrie Moore’s new novel, A Gate at the Stairs, opens a few months after September 11. Tassie Keltjin is a freshman at a liberal arts college in Troy, Wisconsin. She remarks that 9/11 was something that people occasionally talked about, but that the chatter was quickly replaced by the excitement of new classes and new ideas. This comment alerts the reader that this is going to be a novel that recognizes September 11th, without it being a 9/11 novel.

If any genre, A Gate at the Stairs belongs to the category of coming of age novels. Moore fits Tassie in the role of the naïve farm girl off to college perfectly without resorting to clichés. Though Tassie becomes a nanny in the first chapter of the novel, her nannying experience is neither a tell-all of harrowing parenting skills nor a sordid tale of an affair between nanny and husband. Instead, it’s a contemplative look at both recent liberal pretentions and timeless loss of innocence.

Tassie’s charge is an adopted, quarter African-American girl named Mary-Emma or “Emmie.” Her parents, Sarah Brink and Edward Thornwood, are white. Sarah owns an upscale restaurant that uses Tassie’s family’s local, organic potatoes; Edward is a cancer researcher. In other words, this is a model liberal couple, making the model, liberal move of adopting a “colored” child. Sarah even creates a support group for families with colored children. They sit around in her living room as Tassie watches the kids in the attic. They chat about identifiably liberal ideas. Moore lets these chatter wash over us like the way they wash over Tassie in sections like this:

“’Postracial is a white idea…’” This again. It had all begin to sound to be like a spiritually gated community of liberal chat.
‘A lot of ideas are white ideas.’
‘It’s like postfeminist or postmodern. The word post is put forward by people who have grown bored of the conversation…’
‘If you reject religion, you reject blackness.’
‘Black culture here is just southern culture moved north, that’s all.’”

Of course, these meetings don’t really accomplish anything. Through Tassie, we see the ridiculousness. “"This was the sort of snobbery I noticed even amongst the most compassionate Democrats,” she thinks at one point.

In a clever move, Moore ties together her message about the limits of liberalism and the pain of growing up when Tassie discovers Sarah and Edward’s real reason for adopting a child while in their mid-Forties. Tassie realizes that nothing she thought to be true is actually true. Even after this revelation, Moore still restrains herself by not overwriting Tassie’s character. She doesn’t become a different person over night, but just someone with newly gained perspective.

Unsurprisingly for a novel whose main focus is not 9/11, the sections most related to the terrorist attacks and the ensuing war are the least effective. Towards the end of the novel, Moore throws in some plot twists involving local recruiting and the Iraq War which only force Tassie to reconsider the life she knew more deeply. Though this last part is unnecessary, the book’s overall effect is powerful.