A Gate at the Stairs (Vintage Contemporaries)

By Lorrie Moore

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From “one of the most acute and lasting writers of her generation” (The New York Times) comes a piercing novel of race, class, love, and war in America.

Twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin, the daughter of a gentleman farmer, has come to a university town as a student. When she takes a job as a part-time nanny for a mysterious and glamorous family, she finds herself drawn deeper into their world and forever changed. 

“An indelible portrait of a young woman coming of age in the Midwest in the year after 9/11…. Moore has written her most powerful book yet.” —The New York Times

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Published Aug 24, 2010

336 pages

Average rating: 4

2 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

hrbrae77
Jul 15, 2026
4/10 stars
The last twenty pages or so were the only ones I sincerely enjoyed.

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