'America's first lady of darkness and mirth.' Guardian
'The best American writer of her generation.' Nick Hornby
'Unmissable.' Marie Claire
From one of the most celebrated imaginations in American literature, Lorrie Moore's new novel is a magic box of longing and surprise.
High up in a New York City hospice, Finn sits with his beloved brother Max, who is slipping from one world into the next. But when a phone call summons Finn back to a troubled old flame, a strange journey begins, opening a trapdoor in reality. It will prompt a questioning of life and death, grief and the past, comedy and tragedy, and the diaphanous separations that lie between them all.
'Moore writes with such panache, such extraordinary perception and wit, that not a single sentence is wasted.' Elizabeth Day
'One of the most acute and lasting writers of her generation.' New York Times
'That Moore publishes so rarely is a gift in itself, because it compels you to read her over and over. . . Moore's a writer you don't quit.' Guardian
'One of the funniest writers alive.' Dave Eggers

Portrait

Lorrie Moore is the award-winning author of five story collections, four novels, a collection of criticism and a children's book. A Gate at the Stairs was shortlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize, now the Women's Prize, and she has received numerous accolades from the Lannan Foundation, the National Books Critics Circle, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. After serving for almost three decades as the Delmore Schwartz Professor in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Moore is now the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University.