Sorrowful Stairs
The dust jacket of Lorrie Moore’s new book “A Gate at the Stairs” informs us that she writes about “the anxiety and disconnection of post-9/11 America, the insidiousness of racism, the blind-sidedness of war and the recklessness thrust on others in the name of love.” This summary, which could describe any number of post-millennial novels less accomplished than Ms. Moore’s, offends most of all in the way it evokes the bombastic, manic tone of a thriller: “A Gate at the Stairs” is many things, but it is rarely exciting. Like the residents of Troy (the Midwestern college town where the book...
