2010 Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Award for Fiction!

Now in paperback!

A GATE AT THE STAIRS
Lorrie Moore

Knopf / Random House
$25.95 Hardcover  
ISBN:  9780375409288
Vintage / Random House
$15.00  Trade Paperback 
ISBN:  9780375708466

Contemporary fiction set in Madison, Wisconsin. The latest bestseller from the author of Birds of America.

Our Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Award Winners will be featured on…

… on September 13!
SEPTEMBER 13 BOOK SEGMENT 
Click here for more info.

Praise for A GATE AT THE STAIRS:

* Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award
* Finalist for the Orange Prize for Fiction
* Chosen as a Best Book of the Year by
     The New York Times Book Review
     The Washington Post
     Chicago Tribune
     The Christian Science Monitor
     Kansas City Star
     Financial Times
     St. Louis Post-Dispatch
     Real Simple

“Beautiful. . . . Wonderfully described and worthy of savoring. . . Bright and lovely.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“A stunning examination of grief—the learning of it, the insidious ways in which it seeps into everything, eating away at people and relationships, lingering until sometimes forgiveness becomes impossible.” —Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

“In Tassie Keltjin . . . Moore has created an indelible character who leaves the reader with a startling and poignant story.” —The Kansas City Star 
 
“Her most powerful book yet… An indelible portrait of a young woman coming of age.”  — The New York Times

Buy this book from your favorite locally owned and operated Midwest independent bookseller! 
Click here for the directory of our member bookstores.

MBA Bookseller Information

For more information about this book, please contact your Scholastic sales rep.  Order this book from Random House or from your preferred wholesaler . 

If you want to inquire about events with Lorrie Moore, please contact Vintage publicist Sloane Crosley,  scrosley@randomhouse.com.

Downloads

Please download these PDF files and print out the sign and shelf-talkers to use with your Twin Cities Live “What to Read Next” displays of these books.

SIGN FOR TCL SEPTEMBER 13 FEATURED BOOKS (PDF)
SHELF-TALKERS FOR TCL SEPTEMBER 13 FEATURED BOOKS (PDF)

Note:  The shelf-talkers need to be printed on card stock and cut apart along crop marks. Each book has its own shelf-talker, which is double so that it can be used either on the shelf under the book, or as a slip card standing up from the top of the book like a large bookmark.

• Paperback cover photo (JPG)
• Author photo (JPG)
• Reader’s Guide (PDF)

ABOUT THE BOOK

“Tassie’s awakening is nothing short of brilliant. . . . This is not merely a coming-of-age novel, but a world coming to grips with a new, uneasy existence.” —Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
 
“The story’s apparent modesty and ambling pace are deceptive, a cover for profound reflections on marriage and parenthood, racism and terrorism, and especially the baffling, hilarious, brutal initiation to adult life. . . . Strange and moving.” —The Washington Post Book World 
 
“Moore balances pathos and humor, poetry and puns, often on the seesaw of the same sentence. . . . A Gate at the Stairs is vintage Lorrie Moore.” —San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Moore’s penetrating and singular voice as a writer is one I could listen to for years and years.”—Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR
 
“Tassie is achingly real and, thanks to Moore’s nimble prose, an unbeatable guide through the thicket of early adulthood.” —People
 
“Moore’s acute intelligence and sheer love of wordplay make her challenging and interesting to read. She’s also funny as hell. A Gate at the Stairs is not a novel anyone will want to put down. . . . This is Greek tragedy cloaked in a coming-of-age cape.” —Houston Chronicle 

Tassie Keltjin has come from a small farming town to attend college in Troy, “the Athens of the Midwest.” She’s swept into a thrilling world of books and films and riveting lectures, high-flying discussions about Bach, Balkanization, and bacterial warfare, and the witty repartee of her fellow students. At the end of the semester, Tassie takes a job as a part-time nanny for the newly adopted child of Sarah Brink, the owner of a trendy downtown restaurant, and her husband, Edward Thornwood, a scientist pursuing independent research. Tassie is enchanted by the little girl. Her feelings about Sarah and Edward are less easily defined, and as she becomes an integral part of their family, the mysteries of their lives and their relationship only deepen. She finds little to anchor her: a boyfriend turns out to be quite different from what he seems; vacations in her hometown are like visits to an alien country; and her loving, eccentric family no longer provides the certainties and continuity that shaped her childhood.

Lorrie Moore’s ability to blend quick wit and hilarious observations of current trends with moving portraits of people struggling with loneliness, confusion, and the desire for love has made her one of the most admired writers of our time. Capturing the mood of post-9/11 America with astonishing deftness and precision, A Gate at the Stairs showcases Moore at the height of her powers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lorrie Moore is the author of the story collections Birds of America, Like Life, and Self-Help and the novels Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and Anagrams. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. She is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.