A Gate at the Stairs

As a prerequisite for writing my BFA thesis, the instructor of the class had us all attempt the impossible. For an assignment, she asked us to write a list of twenty books and authors that had influenced us the most along our journeys as writers and readers. It's easy to say, “I was inspired when I was younger and that's why I want to be a writer.” But to concretely list and define the very things that make you who you are is even harder than it sounds. Some of my childhood favorites made the list, including Dahl and Silverstein. Then there were the books that got me through my adolescence, including David Levithan's The Realm of Possibility and Sonya Sones' What My Mother Doesn't Know, both the simple beginning of a love of poetry based in the real and concrete. And finally, I made my way into the books that sought me out, that grabbed and shook me and shouted “This is who you are!” Among this list of authors there was Sylvia Plath, James Frey, e.e. cummings. But one of the frontrunners, arguably my favorite author, was Lorrie Moore.

“Lorrie Moore has something that many writers of her generation don't have: She is truly odd,” Susan Salter Reynolds of the Los Angeles Times writes. “But Moore's stories don't leave us in the solitary confinement that oddity can create, the way Diane Arbus did in her photographs, or Flannery O'Connor in her stories. They are the dance halls and constellations in which eccentricity becomes uniqueness.” Susan Salter Reynolds is spot on. Lorrie Moore's writing is a vibrant, triumphant celebration for all that is unusual. Her collection of short stories, Birds of America, is swooned over by critics and authors alike. But it is her other collection, Self Help, that changed the way that I look at writing completely. Moore's words have taught me that humor can be tragic, that soft can be unbreakable, that even the world's most obscure complexities can be coaxed with the right language. She is fearless, cracking open the human spirit just to poke and explore what lies inside. And inside of Moore's spirit we find a wonderful humor bordered with an indescribable sadness. It is an absolutely breathtaking combination.

Moore's works are filled with twists and turns, with the reality-based depth and hypocrisy of human beings. After a pleasant jaunt in non-fiction with The Hard Questions and Word Freak, I was aching for a heavy, mind-altering novel. And so I decided to jump in full force, without testing the temperature of the water first. A Gate at the Stairs, Moore's most recent novel, was perfect.

As usual with Moore, the plot of A Gate at the Stairs is difficult to explain. The story centers around Tassie, a college student in Troy, Michigan. She lives the awkward life of a twenty-something, simultaneously too old to be a kid and too young to be an adult. Tassie is like a baby horse, stretching and bucking and unstable on her feet, just learning to walk and to use the power that nature has given her. As the book opens, she is searching for a part-time job for the spring semester. She is hired to be a nanny by Sarah Brink, the owner of a local restaurant, and unwillingly attaches herself to the adoption process that Sarah and her husband are just beginning. Tassie is dragged through the meet-and-greet process of birth mothers until the family finally brings home Mary (who they rename Marry-Emma, or Emmie – the child has so many different names), a one year old African American child who has been passed around foster care since she was born. Caring for Mary-Emma begins a process of discovery and disappointment in mankind's tolerance, for both Tassie and the Brink-Thornwood family. One day, on a walk through a snow-covered neighborhood with Mary-Emma in tow, the closed-minded racism of the town is impossible to ignore.

“A car on the opposite side of the street, full of teenagers, it seemed – I could not tell how old they were – slowed down and looked at us from across the lane. […] It pulled up to the curb. A guy with a bright orange mohawk, a big silver ring in his brow, silver studs like cake decorations up the cartilaginous rim of his ear, and a thick black leather jacket that made him look as if he were wearing an expensive chair, leaned out the window. […] He glared right at little Mary-Emma and shouted, “Nigger!” […] The boys in the back snickered a little, and [the girl driving] swung the car away from the curb. The rear tire spun and flung snow into the wagon, which made Mary-Emma laugh at first and then, when the rock-frozen snow hit her face, made her cry.”

In response to the incident, Mary-Emma's adopted mother forms a “support” group for parents and families in a similar situation. The group meets every Wednesday evening and bits of their conversation drift up the stairs and into the attic, where Tassie is watching over the children. This is where she learns that racism is ugly and vicious from both directions, even from those that proclaim themselves above it. For a white farm girl from tiny Dellacrosse, MI, these experiences are life-changing.

Around the same time, Tassie begins a romantic relationship with a boy named Reynaldo, who claims to be Brazilian. Their connection, to her must be love; to him, it is convenience and lust. They spend months speaking at each other instead of to, managing to communicate without really communicating at all. “If he had loved me, or even if he'd just have said so, I would have died of happiness. But it didn't happen. So I didn't die of happiness. Words for a tombstone: SHE DIDN'T DIE OF HAPPINESS.” Their private, intense love affair ends as suddenly and confusingly as it began, and Tassie is left wondering how much she really knows about the people she chooses to surround herself with.

For me, this is where the crux of the book lays - in Tassie's relationships with Mary-Emma and the Brink-Thornwoods, and how it is affected by her relationship with Reynaldo. Tassie, who is so unfamiliar with love, affection, and the need to protect, falls head over heels for Mary, or Emmie, or Mary-Emma, whatever she is called. The connection that they form is beautiful and fierce. I think that this also has to do with her affection for Reynaldo – he is dark skinned and mysterious, so much like Mary-Emma, and she finally sees herself as part of a happy family. This family, of course, crumbles – Reynaldo exits, and then the unthinkable happens and Marry-Emma is taken away. At this point, a bit of the story died for me. I was still interested in Tassie's life, in what she had learned and would continue to learn, in the loss of her innocence that was snowballing out of control. But it was Mary-Emma and all of the conflict that her dark eyes and unruly hair (to braid or to let curl? Her write mother lamented) that captivated me. I wish Moore had been kinder to the small girl's character – like so many characters in the book, I wish I had gotten to keep her longer. Once Marry-Emma has disappeared from her life, Tassie moves back home for the summer, leaving yet another part of herself behind.

Just when it seems that Tassie has lost all that can be lost – little Mary Emma and her family, Reynaldo, her bright-eyed admiration for college life and “big city folk” – another loved one leaves, suddenly and dramatically. This time, in the form of a death. Tassie, who has dealt so much with loss and disappearance, still doesn't know how to accept death. And so, at the funeral, unable to cope emotionally, she climbs into the casket with this loved one and closes the lid, in hopes of bringing them back to life with physical affection and regular, everyday conversation.

“His stammerless stillness seemed the loneliest and most dumbfounding thing. […] We would be kids again, lying in the woods somewhere except the smell was starting to seem horrible, and I was curling against him in such a way that I realized he'd been stuffed with things, styrofoam or something, as so many parts of him were missing...I could see that death had settled him, flattened him in the way that a salad – of, say, three-season spring greens – flattened and settled after initially being fresh and buoyant and high in the bowl. How he had once been fresh and buoyant and high in the bowl!”

In a moment that only Lorrie Moore could create, Tassie lays in the coffin, seemingly paralyzed with grief and inability to understand, as the pallbearers unknowingly carry them to the hearse. During the ride to the cemetery, she upsets herself so much that she gets a nose bleed. Once they arrive, she has no choice but to crawl out of the coffin covered in blood, in front of a small crowd. What is there left to be said?

Reading Lorrie Moore's writing can sometimes be like walking through a nature conservatory. There are so many beautiful things to look at – colors and patterns in every direction that take your breath away. But everything is so beautiful that sometimes you feel overwhelmed, and you're not sure which is the most beautiful, which should really demand your attention. Which of these aching plotlines is the true heart of the book? Tassie's run-ins with racism and prejudice? Her blindly unsuccessful experiences with love, both from a boyfriend and from a child? Her ever-changing relationships with her family, and with mankind in general? Then there are the constant reminders that even those that you know most intimately aren't what they seem, that mankind has a deep and terrible ability to keep secrets from one another. The loss of a loved one and the uphill struggle to return to “normal” life once they have passed. These are all linked together with beautiful, haunting language, dripping with loneliness. These form the path throughout the conservatory, leading the reader from one exhibit to the next. When you finally finish the novel, walk from the greenhouse back into the afternoon, it is a rush of mixed emotions; the disappointment that the technicolor world has faded back to a mix of Pennsylvania green and concrete, a wish that all of life could be that beautiful and intense, but also the relief of no longer being responsible for experiencing and appreciating so much beauty. To truly experience art or beauty, in the way that it is “meant” to be experienced, is both a skill and a responsibility – to finish Moore's book is, in some ways, to breathe a sigh of relief. After working so hard, I wanted to just let life happen to me, instead of having to try and grasp its intricacies.

There are a few subjects touched upon, danced around, in A Gate at the Stairs that I wish had received more attention. Not because the book didn't have enough substance, or even because there seemed to be room for them – simply because I would have liked to see Moore write about them. Tassie is a musician (she calls herself “BassFace” and owns both the stand up and electric form of the instrument), but her interest and love for music only cross paths with the story's narration fleetingly. There are a few touching moments in which music plays a roll; dealing with a break-up by writing throw-away songs with her roommate, cranking Diana Ross' Ain't No Mountain High Enough with Mary-Emma as her mother screams at the adoption agency downstairs, trying to buy more time. But the full depth of Tassie's relationship with music is never touched upon. The same can be said for the relationship between Sarah Brink and Edward Thornton (the couple that adopts Mary-Emma and hires Tassie), as well as Tassie's parents, her roommate Murph, her boyfriend Reynaldo. There is so much in these characters that Moore never truly explores.

Lorrie Moore is known for being odd. In her short stories, this is what drew me to her so completely – she created pictures and flavors with her language that most wouldn't dream of, the Willy Wonka of figurative language. But this is the first lengthy, continuous work of Moore's that I have ever read. And in its unabridged form, Moore's oddness can be hard to handle. Lilting, unusual language is lovely, but too much of it can leave the reader lost and discombobulated. Towards the end of the book, both Tassie and the book's narration begin to tumble apart at the seams. There is certainly a point to these stumbles – even in its rambling unraveling, there is grace – but I enjoyed the heart-driven, dialogue and situation based writing of the book's earlier chapters so much more. I am learning that, although I still adore and emulate Moore, perhaps my favorite thing about her writing is its compact strangeness, which is much stronger in her short stories. She fits such a wonderful little universe into so few pages. In this novel her writing is allowed to stretch and sprawl, to cover the ground like a thick fog, and I can't quite decide how I feel about it.

Nonetheless, when looked at in its entirety, A Gate at the Stairs is a beautiful piece of work. The inside jacket summary of the book states, “Moore turns her eye on the anxiety and disconnection of post-9/11 America, on the insidiousness of racism, the blind-sidedness of war, and the recklessness thrust on others in the name of love.” While reading, I thought to myself, what on earth does this have to do with 9/11? There's barely a sentence about the terrorist attacks in here. But after finishing the story, it hit me. The reason I didn't understand the heavy theme of 9/11, and of fear, in the novel is because I'm so used to it that I barely notice it around me anymore. Life has changed so completely since 2001 that I hardly notice the accelerated state that the country lives in now – quick to attack, to panic, to promise and to declare. Tassie is caught in a time that America is stumbling over its own feet, too afraid to move forward but too scarred and traumatized to look back. And, when I think back on the book's details, I see that in the characters and their actions. It is, indeed, a book about “the anxiety and disconnection of post 9/11 America” - and so many years later, I am sad to see that Moore is right - America has hardly recovered at all.

“In the sky were starry poisons, like the hundred spiders that, throughout the human life span, are said to drop into one's mouth, while sleeping with a dropped jaw. I ran north and north and north and could perhaps have run all the way to Canada, where, paralyzed with sadness and exhaustion, my arms and fingers would stiffen upward and I would, in one of grief's mythic transformations, become a maple tree, my sappy tears cooked down to syrup for someone's flapjacks.”