Angels at the Gate

Since its publication in 1992, The Secret History by Donna Tartt has probably become the template for the genre of “novels about a group of privileged students at an elite school who become dangerously obsessed with secret organizations and/or esoteric subjects.”

Angels at the Gate is a worthy and also unusual addition to this genre. Along with a page-turning plot—which centers on the shocking death of a sophomore—it explores a less dark and more personal theme: How many different ways can men and women be friends, and just where are the lines?

Leah Gavin, the narrator, is a gal-pal, mother confessor, flirt, counselor, pseudo-sister, study partner, ad hoc EMT, horseback-riding companion, conspiracy co-investigator, and love object of a cluster of fellow students at Rockhaven University, a small, liberal arts school hidden away on a Tennessee mountaintop that’s modeled on the author’s alma mater, Sewanee University. Of all the possible roles within that world, there is only one that Leah forbids herself: girlfriend.

Enrolled thanks only to a scholarship, Leah is painfully aware that she has far less money—or family—than her fellow students. When they go skiing in Europe with their parents on vacation, she works as a waitress.

The novel begins with a punch: “In the kitchen of the Gamma Chi house, a boy who will be dead in a few months is mixing drinks.” The body of that boy, Brantley Simms, will be found crumpled on the lawn at the base of the campus bell tower. Had he jumped? Fallen accidentally? Been deliberately pushed?

Leah’s attempt to answer those questions, along with another student, a charismatic seducer named Quinn Cooper, forms one of the book’s key plotlines. Quinn especially becomes obsessed with proving that a super-secret society was behind Brantley’s death.

Over the next two years, that narrative is interwoven with a number of other story lines and a rich world of characters. (Perhaps too many characters? I couldn’t tell some of Leah’s friends apart.) Leah is struggling to figure out her relationships with her circle of buddies; to stay financially afloat; to help her friend Will Oliver, perhaps the most popular student on campus, who is clearly tumbling downhill and wracked with mysterious guilt; to avoid the ire of some other students—including Will’s girlfriend and a boy who may be a member of the super-secret society; to decide whether to break her self-imposed no-sex rule with Quinn; oh, and to study for her classes.

Angels at the Gate is spot-on in its vivid evocation of campus life, especially the intricate nuances of relationships. Leah can hug her boy pals, pat them on the head, even cuddle next to them or dance with them. But kissing? Maybe under a sprig of mistletoe…

The book may be a bit longer than it needs to be. But as Leah and Quinn push deeper into the mystery of Brantley’s death, the novel achieves the rare success of being both a thriller and an intensely felt exploration of love in all sorts of forms.