Through the Pale Door By Brian Ray Winner of the SC First Novel Prize  ISBN: 978-1891885-66-2  Cloth 216 pages, 5.5x8.5 Publication Date: July 2009 Fiction Distributed by John F. Blair  $24.95

"If there were an annual Southern Gothic Fiction Award, Brian Ray's debut novel might win this year's."
                                             -- Gina Webb, Atlanta Journal Constitution 

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. But from the first day of June to the waning days of August, relief is the last thing Sarah finds. Soon after moving into her separated father's house--more like an industrial museum than a home--tragic news about her mother arrives.

The haunting funeral coincides with Sarah's first love affair with a fellow mill worker, a teen-aged vigilante muralist named Edgewood who lives in an abandoned jail on the outskirts of town. Sarah and Edgewood share artistic gifts, but both hesitate at the door between adolescence and adulthood. While Edgewood struggles to develop confidence in his work, Sarah finds her own artistic endeavors haunted by grim yet compelling memories of growing up under the rule of an inexplicably deranged artist on one side and an oddly aloof, workaholic entrepreneur on the other.

Confronted with danger and death at the mill, mortality confronts Sarah and Edgewood from every angle and buries deep in their artwork. As their relationship deepens, 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 first lover's uncertainty in himself.

Through the Pale Door is the winner of the inaugural South Carolina First Novel Competition, sponsored by the S.C. Arts Commission, the S.C. State Library, the Humanities Council SC and the Hub City Writers Project.

About the Author

Brian Ray grew up in Marietta, Georgia, and now lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he is completing a PhD in English. He earned his Master of Fine Arts from the University of South Carolina, where he taught courses in writing and literature. Visit his website.

Downloadable high-res image of Brian Ray

 Advance Praise

"Brian Ray has that rare ability to render the tragic as darkly comic and absurd while not in any way diminishing its devastating impact or its poignancy.  He portrays his eccentric characters with delicacy and compassion. His is a startling new voice that is both laconic and lyrical, always quirky, and absolutely original."

 --Janette Turner Hospital, Carolina Distinguished Professor of English at the University of South Carolina and author of Orpheus Lost

"This is a wonderfully powerful novel. I found myself not only wanting to go where the narrator was taking me, but also wanting merely to hear her speaking."

 --Percival Everett, author of Erasure and The Water Cure

"Brian Ray's novel casts Didion's wide-eyed reportage on the 'new' New South and scores with a novel about class, love, and life."

--Daniel Buckman, author of Because the Rain 

"Such flight of imagination!  Such a fine ear for comic dialogue!  Brian Ray tells a story of a young girl living in a blue collar steel mill town who discovers herself through a love of art, despite her highly eccentric mother. This book is written in the vein of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. You will laugh out loud at these characters, and you will be moved by the grit and intelligence of this narrator.  A stunning first novel. 

--Elizabeth Cox, author of The Slow Moon 

Latest News:

August 30, 2009: From Gina Webb of the Atlanta Journal Constitution: "Ray's characters may be unhinged, but his writing is far from it. And though it was a gamble to set a contemporary story in such a haunted, Poe-drenched world, the result is a quirky first novel that's not afraid to be itself -- a modern, yet unabashedly romantic look at what happens when art and madness collide."

July 9, 2009: From Jeri Rowe of the Greensboro News-Record: "It's funny, poignant and dark in a Tim Burton kind of way."

July 1, 2009: Teresa Weaver reviews Through the Pale Door in the July issue of Atlanta magazine: This "story is so gently told, in a setting so beautifully grim, it's easy to forget this is a debut novel."

May 28, 2009: Starred review in Booklist: " "Ray finds comic moments, mainly in the dialogue, and holds nothing sacred when it comes time for a well-deserved laugh. ... Ray is a talent to watch."

May 20, 2009: JC Robertson of the Southern Literary Review: "Ray has created a beautiful first novel with a musicality to its tone and a charm to its characters that is refreshingly universal—by that I mean everything wasn’t chalked up to being southern. The style is original and the book was a pleasure to read and I hope we see more from him soon."

May 1, 2009: Georgia's Decatur Book Festival, Aug. 28-30, has invited Brian Ray to participate this year.

April 1, 2009: Brian Ray has been invited to participate in the NC Literary Festival in Chapel Hill, NC, in September 2009.