Vista Book Group recently read Through the Pale Door by Brian Ray, winner of the South Carolina First Novel prize. Ray visited with us and discussed his writing. Here are a few points that came up in our discussion. 

Ray discovered he wanted to be a writer while attending the University of South Carolina. He once worked in a steel mill in Columbia, which provided the setting for his novel. At first he hated the mill but gradually began to see the landscape of the mill as art.

Ray often gets consumed by the work of artists that interest him. This is a quality he shares with many of his characters. His book includes childlike moments that turn dark and surreal graveyard settings. Some locations in the novel are amalgams of various asylums, prisons, and abandoned buildings that he has visited and are striking settings.

The group asked Ray why he created a female main character. He explained that as he writes a voice starts speaking to him, and a writer's job is to let that voice speak.

Ray's writing is edgy, but with humor. Ray read from his short story in the collection, Wretched Moments, and discussed his latest book Unknown Female.

Is Ray a "Southern fiction" writer? Ron Rash is an acknowledged influence, and according to Ray, a southern writer has a love of landscape and gives a lot of attention to its detail. Ray has this quality in his writing.