A Gate on the Stairs

"The wrinkly recursiveness of her language seems lodged at the layer of consciousness itself, where Moore demands readers’ attention to the innate thingliness of words." Says Jonathan Lethem in the NYT's about The Gate in the Stairs by Lorrie Moore..... huh?

Anyway Lorrie Moore traditionally writes short stories and this probably was one once. However in bulking it up, detail after detail is piled on needlessly. She seems to have decided it needs to be an important book with larger themes so threw in---just to name a few---global warming, 9/11, racism, child abuse, the Iran Iraq war, terrorism, the food industry, etc etc. She has clever little opinions and bon mots on pretty much everything, usually smug, usually extraneous. Underneath it all, like a slim little toddler in a snowsuit, is a wisp of a story of a college girl who works as a nanny for parents of an adopted biracial girl. It must be the innate thingliness of words that I object to. Less thingliness please.