It’s a marital, spiritual and philosophical crisis: Does a hardwood floor woman belong with a wall-to-wall carpet man?
Diana Rose Sudberry has a settled life. She’s got a dependable husband, two good kids and a stable job. When twenty-four year old Bradley Peters shows up at her workplace, Diana Rose is tempted to tell him he’s the best looking thing she’s seen in a long time. Instead she invites him to church, and before long she’s contemplating adultery and trying to remember why she married her husband Jerry in the first place.
As Diana Rose tries to resist Bradley, she realizes that everyone struggles to balance personal desires against family commitments. Her frugal, eccentric mother lives in a mobile home but has a shed full of flea market treasures awaiting a real house. Before his death, her diabetic daddy would sneak dessert on Saturday mornings at Shoney’s. Almost two centuries after the Georgia gold rush, her grandmother digs daily for gold in the yard of her Dahlonega home.
While Diana Rose considers how the people of her past have faced temptations, her husband Jerry wrestles with his own desires for wall-to-wall carpet and a sexy coworker. Her tempter Bradley pursues the finances, faith and family he’s never had. And as these three people converge on a conflict that will change their lives and even their spirits, White Line to Graceville seeks to reveal how temptation, love, commitment and faith are relative but ever present in the lives of us all.
Under the title Divining Rose, White Line to Graceville was a finalist in the 2003 William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition, novel-in-progress category. Kory may dig it out from under the coffee table and have a go at it again sometime – if she ever needs a break from her poetry addiction.
