In the tradition of such stellar writers as Cormac McCarthy, Harry Crews and James Agee, Escaping Darkness is the haunting tale of Donny Wayne Gavin, a young man driven to the edge of insanity by divorce and his brother's death in Vietnam. Neglected by an alcoholic father, tormented by his pious mother's sexual escapades and oppressed by the mountainous region in which he lives, Donny attempts suicide by jumping off a hotel's seventeenth floor ledge. However, at the last moment his attempt is stymied by a homeless woman named Mary, who helps Donny embark upon a spiritual quest that enables him to confront the demons within. Sadly though Donny's realizations later turn to dust and he is left once more standing at the crossroads of self-destruction and desperation facing life on the streets, suicide, or both. Filled with hope and despair, sexual tension, black humor, southern mysticism and moral drama, Escaping Darkness is the bittersweet story of adversity almost overcome and one man's journey through the unforgiving world of Southern Appalachia.