Through the Pale Door

By Brian Ray

Book Overview

Sarah West takes a temporary job at her father's South Carolina steel mill the summer before college, hoping for relief from the chaos of her psychotic and often institutionalized mother. Soon after moving into her father's home, tragic news about her mother arrives. The haunting funeral coincides with Sarah's first love affair with a fellow mill worker, Edgewood, who shares Sarah's artistic gifts. Confronted with danger and death at the mill, mortality confronts Sarah and Edgewood from every angle and buries deep in their artwork. Edgewood helps Sarah overcome the loss of her mother. In the end, however, Sarah will face a greater challenge: domesticating her own emerging inner demons while tending to her first lover's uncertainty in himself.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1891885669
• ISBN13: 9781891885662
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Hub City Writers Project
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Solid literary fiction

"Through the Pale Door" is a very fine literary novel. Quirky, fast-paced, snappy dialogue, interesting setting. I enjoyed it. It also is a Southern novel that defies a lot of the "Southern novel" stereotypes. Last thing, it's a book written by a man, in the voice of a woman -- successfully. That's a rare thing.

Better than Pat Conroy's new novel

Having just read Pat Conroy's new novel "South of Broad," I can definably say this is better: the dialogue is cleverer and better-written, the characterization far deeper, and the story more resonant and real. The structure of this novel is relatively straightforward: it's a character study / coming-of-age tale about a young woman who leaves her clinically-on-the-edge mother for the summer to go work at her father's South Carolina steel mill before she heads off to college. Hung on that framework, the reader finds darkly hilarious characters (the heroine's father so loves money that he tries to use it to salve emotional wounds, handing out twenties to his daughter the way some people would use apple pie or chicken soup) and a series of events that scintillate between the horrific and comic (my favorite moment may be when the heroine is the only person to attend a funeral because the entire rest of her family gets the directions wrong and winds up at Six Flags instead) . Tragedies of mistake run throughout the work: accidents of industry, of genetics, of miscommunication. There is madness, sex and death here; brutal realities; a constant humanity. Many years ago, I read an essay (for some reason, I think it was by Josephine Humphreys) asking "Is the South still Gothic?". There are ruins here, in this South, but they are the ruins of abandoned mills and prisons, not plantation houses; kudzu over rusting steel. Ghosts, too, if you count the psychological. All in all, this is a great read. If you're looking for a sharp-written take on the raw side of the modern South, you'd be well off if you picked this up.

Read this book!

"I stood there paralyzed as rain pelted the Venus' breasts until they sagged and slid off. Slowly I extended my hand and let a finger brush against her sternum. She crumbled. Most monuments do." - Sarah West, p. 77 This passage is one of my favorites from _Through the Pale Door_. Author Brian Ray tackles everything from mental health to first love, and he does so in a way that takes readers below the surface - there is no monumentalizing in this novel, and that's a very good thing. The South of _Through the Pale Door_ finds beauty in sprawling steel mills, sees rhythm in the heat dancing along the scorching pavement, and finds solace in Southern expressions of grief. It is in this world that Sarah's story unfolds, and we learn how she deals with her mother's mental illness, her father's emotional distance, her first love's artistic temperament, and her own grappling with life's forces at play. Whether we are treated to the glimpses of family life in the throes of her mother's breakdowns or are allowed to witness Sarah's developing artistry, Ray deftly interweaves humor and hope throughout the sometimes-heartbreaking events in Sarah's coming-of-age summer. And he does so with style: In another of my favorite passages, Sarah finds inspiration in "A twisted slither of rebar...I drew two lizards concluding an act of vicious sex, the female chewing off the neck of her handsome partner. I decided to entitle this, _Postcoital Munchies_" (121).

A great book! Highly recommended!

This novel has it all: characters that are true-to-life and interesting, dark humor, great character dialog, artistic landscape, and a plot line that is sure to suck you in! It's a fascinating look at real mental illness and family issues. I couldn't put it down!

Loved it!

A haunting debut novel with plenty of dark humor. Couldn't put it down! Highly recommended.