'A little floor-mat problem at the end'

'I'm probably not a natural novelist, but I want to become one. I loved working on A Gate at the Stairs.I know it's not perfect, but that's what novels are allowed to be - imperfect.　I know it speeds up at the end like a Toyota　- it has a little floor-mat problem at the end. A short story has to have energy and focus, but novels can wander around quite a bit... Novels borrow from the world like that. They are different from reportage or photographs. They take things, and scramble them and create a parallel universe that asks questions, without providing any answers.'

Lorrie Moore, author of A Gate in the Stairs, in the Observer