A few weeks ago, Lorrie Moore’s new novel A Gate at the Stairs, seemed to be reviewed everywhere at once.  The novel is set in a liberal, Midwestern college town, modeled on Moore’s own Madison, WI. Perhaps all the New York reviewers were relieved to read something about 9/11 that was NOT set in New York City.  Mostly though, since Moore’s last book came out in 1998, folks were eager for something new by this talented writer.

The story is told by an unassuming young college girl, Tassie, who is the daughter of a gourmet potato farmer.  Shortly after 9/11, she is hired by a liberal couple to babysit.  The only catch — there isn’t a baby yet.  The couple is attempting to adopt.  When they finally adopt, the woman, a chef, is outraged at the agency people’s attitudes toward black babies.  She and her husband happily adopt a bi-racial baby.  Throughout the book, Moore deftly analyzes the class and racial dynamics that spring up in this supposedly liberal town.  While 9/11 seems like mere window-dressing at the beginning of the story, Moore’s treatment of the event seems nearer the mark than any that I have read.

This is a very wordy novel, and I say that as a compliment. Moore uses language to ponder the distinctions between the real and the unreal.  Her liberal characters love to talk about problems, in endless rap sessions.  However, through Tassie, we see where language hits its limitations, where talk can spin so far away from reality that no good can actually come from it:

“Oh, I see!  A communist!  A revolutionary who wants to challenge simple college admissions diversity as being unrealistic as a mechanism of social change.  I love this.  Let me come to your dacha next week and I’ll explain everything. .. ”

“Another false dichotomy.  Don’t you agree, Edward?  Mo’s just setting up a false dichotomy?  It doesn’t have to be diversity or socialism, affirmative action or class equality.  One is easier to do, granted, and doesn’t cost anything.”

“It costs!  In terms of diversions and resources, it all costs!”

“That’s a load of crap!”

I had once seen a load of crap.  It was carried to our house in Don Edenhaus’s truck and dumped right at our barn for composting into fertilizer.

Through scenes like this, Moore develops her observations of language.  Like the best novelists, she doesn’t have an agenda, and yet, when you finish the book, you’ll find yourself re-thinking some of your basic assumptions about America in the twenty-first century.