Hey, Holden Caulfield -- don't look now but somebody's sitting in your seat on the bus.

Her name's Tassie Keltjin and she's smart like you but a heck of a lot cuter.

She lives in Wisconsin, plays the bass electric and acoustic, studies at a place that looks suspiciously like UW in Madison and just scored a job as a nanny for an East Coast couple.

I almost forgot -- Tassie's also a virgin -- in more ways than one.

And when you read about her in Lorrie Moore's new novel, "A Gate at the Stairs," you'll realize Tassie's also a magician for having finally secured her creator a spot in the top echelon of American novelists, a position that's eluded Moore until now.

A master short story writer who first spread her wings in the 1980s, Moore will read from and discuss her stunning and deeply effective third novel Saturday at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

Unlike the reception given her two previous novels, Moore's newest is unequivocally first-rate. "A Gate at the Stairs" is a great American novel that easily outstrips many recent pretenders to that title.

Like so many American tales before it, the story opens with a fresh-faced American character abloom with innocence, intelligence, idealism and good humor. Soon, however, Tassie's character darkens, taking on the stormy, surrounding colors of an American spirit in crisis.

On all levels, "A Gate at the Stairs" is a coming-of-age story.

Curiously enough, when Moore began working

on the novel, she thought she'd be writing about hate after 9/11.

"Long ago, I thought that's what I might be writing about," Moore e-mailed the Sentinel recently. "But soon I realized I was writing about useless love, useless good intentions and ominous acquiescence."

A tragedy on many layers, each sadder than the next, "A Gate at the Stairs" also happens to be a very, very funny story -- something you expect from this word clown.

But while Moore's sardonic wit displays itself volubly at the beginning of the novel, it fades as the seriousness of her story's layers are revealed. In the end, even when levity is present, the reader realizes that most humor carries a kernel of poignancy within it -- that when comedy reveals its subversive nature, it can transform into tragedy.

What never fades is Moore's style -- intricate, structured and mature in its emotional impact and pacing, skills she credits mentor Alison Lurie with helping her ripen.

Coaching aside, this story would be nothing if Moore herself hadn't lavished years on it, polishing it and growing alongside it.

Often asked why it took her more than decade to write another book, she responds in a way recognizable to the vast majority of today's American women:

"I was teaching, writing book reviews, raising my son, keeping my house and doing it solo, since I was divorced in 2001, writing short fiction and working on this book," Moore replied. "Novels take a long time, even in an unimpeded life."

Tassie would unquestionably agree that personal narratives are always subject to the whims of nature.

As a resident of the Midwest, where thunderstorms regularly rip open calm, summer skies, Tassie knows intimately the "ungovernable diversity" of life.

Tassie on tragedy(an excerpt from "Gate at the Stairs"):

"Tragedies, I was coming to realize through my daily studies in the humanities both in and out of the classroom, were a luxury. They were constructions of an affluent society, full of sorrow and truth but without moral function. Stories of the vanquishing of the spirit expressed and underscored a certain societal spirit to spare. The weakening of the soul, the story of downfall and failed overcoming - trains missed, letters not received, pride flaring, the demolition of one's own offspring, who were then served up in stews - this was awe-inspiring, wounding entertainment told uselessly and in comfort at tables full of love and money. Where life was meagerer (sic.), where the tables were only half full, the comic triumph of the poor was the useful demi-lie. Jokes were needed. And then the baby fell down the stairs. This could be funny! Especially in a place and time where worse things happened. It wasn't that suffering was a sweepstakes, but it certainly was relative. For understanding and for perspective, suffering required a butcher's weighing. And to ease the suffering of the listener, things had better be funny. Though they weren't always. And this is how, sometimes, stories failed us: Not that funny. Or worse, not funny in the least."

if you go

lorrie moore
Author of: 'A Gate at the Stairs'
when: Saturday, 7:30 p.m.
where: Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz
Cost: Free
Details: 460-3232,
bookshopsantacruz.com