At the Door of the Gate

by Forrest Reid

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338 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1916

About the author

Forrest Reid was an Irish novelist, literary critic and translator. He was, along with Hugh Walpole and J.M. Barrie, a leading pre-war British novelist of boyhood. He is still acclaimed as the greatest of Ulster novelists and was recognised with the award of the 1944 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel Young Tom.

Reviews

[Martyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is, in a way, a sequel to Following Darkness (Peter Waring) - but only in the sense that some familar names are mentioned briefly (pp. 188-189) when the central character, Richard Seawright, happens to visit the seaside and pops into the house of Mrs Carroll in order to view a painting and meets Miss Dick, and the name of Peter Waring is mentioned. This connection may be very trivial and could have been easily dispensed with, but I do admit to having a liking for that sort of thing - like O. Douglas with her world of Priorsford, and L.M. Montgomery with all her references to Anne or to Prince Edward Island. Standalone novels can feel more trivial than a series - it's nice to feel that the author has created a more expansive world, that there is a unity to his work. By itself At the Door of the Gate could be regarded as easily forgettable, but as a sequel (of sorts) to Peter Waring, it carries more weight and becomes more worthy of being read, riding on the tails, as it does, of that far greater work. But it's not without merits of its own. It's another rather depressing and moving account of the trials and tribulations of a young man growing up into adulthood - so nothing in that to set it apart from the rest of Reid's novels. Just more of the same.