Monday, February 10, 2014

Middle Aged Mothers

I've moved on now to one of the "M" books in my collection, in this case, A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore. It's contemporary fiction about a young woman who works as a nanny for a professional couple who adopt a mixed race child. It started out kind of slow but has engaged my interest because the twists and turns are unexpected--always a good thing in a novel.

The book got some very good reviews and some awards as well. I'm not often swayed by such reports because they seem a little self-serving for the literary fiction crowd who seem to like a certain kind of story about the angst of modern life, especially among upper-middle-class characters. This one seems a little different from that, even though it starts out seeming the same. The writer has a good style--almost poetic with her figures of speech and turns of phrase.

We'll see how it turns out.

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