Home, Land, Security: Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs as a 9/11 Novel

Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs is a novel about female maturation and familial bonds that can also be read as a complex response to the patriotic discourses of “homeland security” that prevailed after the 9/11 attacks. Moore’s contribution to the sub-genre of “9/11 fiction” has been overlooked because her concerns appear to be with the limited sphere of domestic relations. In line with Amy Kaplan’s work on the far-reaching implications of the seemingly narrow domestic novel, Moore’s novel examines the state of her nation after 9/11 in a context that extends well beyond the home, understood as both domestic and national space.