Customer Reviews

A Gate at the Stairs

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What's one year in your life. When an average american lives 70 - 80 years, how much impact can the events of one year have on those remaining. As 20 year old Tassie Keltjin finds out, they can be monumental.

At the beginning of that one year period Tassie starts a part time job as a babysitter for a newly adopted, mixed race baby girl. Over the following weeks and months, Tassie find herself being totally immersed in another world. This is one alien to the life she lead at home, which was that of the eldest child of a specialty vegetable farmer in a rural farming community.

At university she takes classes that introduce her to wider aspects of her world; wine tasting, Sufism, the music of war. A boy friend with an unknown past. Lots of doors opening and Tassie passes through most of them, even tumbling the occasional time.

As the year progresses these doors start to slam shut. The first occurs when Tassie returns home for Christmas and finds that her role within the family has changed. She's not the person she was a few months earlier. The visit to the first adoption agency seemed promising, but again, the door slammed shut rather quickly.

This book was like a bad roller coaster ride. It had all the uphill expectations of a big stomach wretching drop, but once you reached the peak, it just kinda coasted gently and didn't seem to go anywhere. Then another buildup and nothing. Usually the ride up the hill is exciting as the higher you get the more you see, but in this case there just wasn't much new to see. It stayed the same. There were lots of bits and pieces added in such as the mashed paperwhite bulbs, the scooter, playing the bird of prey while her father is cutting crops, that I found as distractions. Was I supposed to read more into them with my own reflections. Perhaps they would make more sense if I sat with several bookclub members and discussed them with a glass of sauvignon blanc as Sarah and Tassie did whenever they had a 'serious' conversation.

This story never seemed to find it's stride. It kept trying, but failed for me. Sure, the end had a big emotional punch, but that was about it.

Just finished this book. While Moore is such a beautiful writer, I found the overall structure of the novel not quite right. There seemed to be at least three plots, and they weren't satisfactorily integrated. Still well worth the read for the quality of writing and the voice. Loved the protagonist.