Midwest Masterstroke

A Gate at the Stairs, her first novel in 15 years, follows Tassie Keltjin, a 20-year-old desperate to escape the provincialism of her father’s farm. Moving to the university town of Troy, which wryly styles itself “the Athens of the Midwest”, she hopes to find a “brilliant life of books and films and witty friends”. Predictably, things refuse to go that smoothly.

As the US gears up for war in Afghanistan, Tassie takes work as a nanny for Sarah and Edward Brink, a glamorous pair who have moved from the east coast and are adopting a mixed-race child. What follows is an irreverent look at the complexities of American family and culture in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, something which proves to be an unreal odyssey.