Through the Pale Door
Apr 19, 2011
Author: Brian Ray
Publisher: Hub City Press
Publication Date: Original Hardback 2009
Paperback: February 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-189188578-5
A slim novel packed with emotion. Quite a few of the characters in this book have nothing likable about them, no real redeeming qualities, but the strength of their personality keeps you intrigued enough that you want to know more.
Sarah has been living with her mom - who is basically a deranged artist. When on her medicine she's tolerable. Off her medicine she attempts injury on herself, those around her and is incapable of being in public.
Sarah lives with her mother only because her father left them a few years ago and advised Sarah she needed to stay put and watch out for her mother. She assumes it's also because he's a fairly cold and unfeeling individual. There's no love coming from that man.
As she graduates from high school and has the summer in front of her, a job is offered to her from her father at his steel mill - money that could help quite a bit with college. She's only there a short period when tragedy strikes at the same time she meets a fellow worker - who happens to spend his nights vandalizing the mill with murals he paints.
The question in this novel is whether Sarah will be able to rise above the insanity, coldness and present situation that is her current life to move on and become a successful human being in her future life. Will her new-found object of affection help her find herself and discover what love and caring is all about or will he to become something left behind?
