The Door That Faced West

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The story in The Door that Faced West is a little known piece of history that takes place in the American South as the 18th century ends and the 19th century begins. At the time, the western frontier still occupied territory east of the Mississippi. The novel is based on actual events involving the early American serial killers, the Harpe brothers, Wiley and Micajah. The Harpes are often considered America’s first serial killers. They were land pirates who prowled the wilderness of Tennessee and Kentucky looking for victims.

Although a character-driven fiction novel, it is also something of a true crime book. The story is an Early Western, distinguish from traditional westerns by the technology of the period. At the time, firearms were single shot weapons and hand-to-hand combat was much more common.

The story unfolding from the point of view of the brothers’ third wife, Sadie Rice, the 16 year old daughter of a minister, it provides some education about the limitations of women’s rights of the time. As Sadie endures life on the trail in their company, she benefits from the Harpes’ ability to defend their own with extreme violence. The deeper into the savage wilderness they travel, the more dependent upon the brothers she becomes. Too late, she realizes that their capacity for violence is, in truth, a ravenous hunger.