THE BLUE DOOR
a novel
Janice Deal
How much responsibility and guilt can a mother bear for a child who has done wrong?
Is a parent responsible for a child who commits a crime? If so, how can she deal with that burden?
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These are the questions that haunt Flo when her daughter Teddy plans to visit after a long separation. The prospect of seeing Teddy brings back painful memories of Teddy’s troubled past—a young teen imprisoned for committing murder. Can Flo find the strength to support or even cope with her daughter as she is now? Can she resurrect hope for either of them?
Flo must thrash through these questions alone; her dear friend and confidant has just died. Then, as she's grappling with grief and guilt, her dog goes missing, and she takes a long walk to find him. On the surface, this is all that happens: A simple walk through a desert town. Encounters with people who uplift or unsettle her along the way. But for Flo, this journey becomes much more—a personal odyssey, as profound and disorienting as Ulysses’. She remembers an old folktale passed down by her family, about a young woman’s mythical journey to find her place in the world. Echoes of this tale play through the current story, and the hunt for Dog turns into a metaphysical search for meaning.
Some readers will recall Flo and Teddy from Strange Attractors, the outstanding collection that critics compared to Chekhov and Flannery O’Connor. As her sequel to the mother-daughter story unfolds, Janice Deal once more reveals the extraordinary depths of unpretentious people. The Blue Door is a radical adventure, both compulsively readable and meditative—a rare combination.
Janice Deal is the award-winning author of a previous novel, The Sound of Rabbits, and two story collections, Strange Attractors and The Decline of Pigeons. She has been honored with The Moth Short Story Prize and the Cagibi Macaron Prize as well as an Illinois Arts Council Artists Fellowship Award.
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Forthcoming, April 2025
Fiction, 186 pages
paperback / $19.95 / ISBN 978-1-7355585-7-8
ebook / $9.95 / ISBN 978-1-7355585-8-5​
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Note: We're running a fundraiser to support publication of this book. If you contribute, you get a copy of the book with a personalized autograph. You can also choose from various other incentives. And during this fundraiser, all contributions will be matched 100% by an anonymous donor. Click here to contribute.
Watch a video of Janice discussing The Blue Door:
PRAISE FOR THE BLUE DOOR
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"When you step through The Blue Door, Janice Deal invites you into a world both ordinary and extraordinary, where magic weaves through the fabric of daily life. At its heart is Flo, a wandering spirit and unconventional seeker, whose quest to unravel a shattering family tragedy leaves her estranged, misunderstood, yet fiercely resilient.… Deal masterfully blends the mundane with the mythical, creating a tale that lingers long after the final page."
—Julie E. Justicz, author of Conch Pearl and Degrees of Difficulty
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"This seemingly simple story of a woman trying to come to terms with her daughter’s horrendous crime turns into an otherworldly reflection on how to be in the world and what matters—and it is deeply moving and marvelous in every sense of the word."
—Ellen Akins, author of Home Movie, World Like a Knife, and others
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"In Janice Deal’s mercurial meditation on the power of language and story, one woman’s quest for her lost dog through a desert town becomes an epic adventure. With delightful prose and rich characterization Deal renders the quotidian with an acuity that charms these pages to life: walking sticks are wizard staffs, dogs are gods, and blue doors offer passageways to alternate worlds. Yet when ghosts of memory weigh as heavily as the desert heat, how does one find grace, forgiveness, and hope in a world beset with relentless reminders of our past pain? Open The Blue Door to find a way."
—Jeremy T. Wilson, author of The Quail Who Wears the Shirt and Adult Teeth
"The poetry of this novel delighted me. In transparent, unpretentious prose, Janice Deal taps the visceral peril of parenthood—how the role of Mother envelops and entraps the former self, how a creator is enmeshed with her creation—from this side of a beckoning blue door that opens onto an alternate life."
—Elizabeth Mosier, author of Excavating Memory: Archaeology and Home
"The Blue Door weaves together past, present, future with a potent fairy tale … to create a luminous story that is heartbreaking, full of heart, and unforgettable."
—Lynn Sloan, author of the novels Midstream and Principles of Navigation and the story collection This Far Isn’t Far Enough
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"It is a mother’s challenge to let her child go into the world and find a separate life. But what if that child has committed a savage crime, forcing this separation? 'I am your blind spot,' Teddy says to her mother, Flo. … Over the space of a day, Flo embarks on a quest to find her dog while meditating on love and forgiveness, on loneliness and connection. In this beautiful short novel, Janice Deal leaves us thunderstruck yet hopeful in the face of despair."
—Jan English Leary, author of Town and Gown, Skating on the Vertical, and Thicker Than Blood
"In The Blue Door, we follow the stalwart Flo on a memorable and, at times, mystical quest for comfort and connection. I was gripped by every step of Flo's journey, but especially her brave willingness to confront the darkness of the past in the hope of emerging on the other side. Never has Janice Deal's writing been deeper or more luminous."
—Katherine Shonk, author of The Red Passport and Happy Now?
"Janice Deal’s The Blue Door is a luminous, soul-stirring novel that blends the mundane and the mythical to explore the weight of guilt, the bonds of love, and the search for meaning in a fractured world.
At the heart of the novel is Flo, a mother navigating grief, regret, and longing as she prepares for a reunion with her estranged and troubled daughter, Teddy. Flo’s physical journey throughout the story, to find her missing dog, mirrors an inner pilgrimage, turning a simple walk through a desert town into a profound exploration of the human condition. The people she encounters along the way and her memories—both uplifting and unsettling—add texture to her journey, while the echoes of an old family folktale infuse the narrative with a timeless, almost mythic resonance. With spare and evocative prose, Deal perfectly captures the harsh beauty of the desert landscape and the rich emotional terrain of her protagonist."
—Kate Brandes, author of Stone Creek and The Promise of Pierson Orchard
"On a long search in the desert to find a runaway canine, Flo reviews her past, especially her relationship to Teddy, her estranged daughter who has written to say she’s coming for a visit. How did they get to here? The Blue Door is about finding one’s place in the world while life keeps adding up. With her signature grace and merciful eye, Deal sticks a glorious, complicated landing where next steps beckon."
—James Magruder, author of Vamp Until Ready