Through the Pale Door

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.

Brian Ray teaches writing at UNC-Greensboro.