Susan Beckham Zurenda
Teoksen Bells for Eli: A Novel tekijä
Tietoja tekijästä
Image credit: Anna Beckham Photography
Tekijän teokset
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
- Kanoninen nimi
- Zurenda, Susan Beckham
- Virallinen nimi
- Susan Beckham Zurenda
- Sukupuoli
- female
- Kansalaisuus
- USA
- Syntymäpaikka
- Lancaster, SC
- Asuinpaikat
- Spartanburg, SC
- Koulutus
- Converse College (BA English, Masters English)
- Ammatit
- author
- Palkinnot ja kunnianosoitukset
- Winter 2020 Okra Pick
- Lyhyt elämäkerta
- After teaching literature, composition, and creative writing to thousands of high school and college students for 33 years, Susan Beckham Zurenda turned her attention to putting a novel in her heart on paper, the genesis of which was a short story that won the South Carolina Fiction prize some years ago. Among other accolades, her debut novel, Bells for Eli (Mercer University Press, March 2020), was selected as a Winter 2020 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance and named one of “11 Spring Reading Picks” in Deep South Magazine. Susan taught English for 33 years on the college level and at the high school level to AP students. She has won a number of regional short fiction awards such as the South Carolina Fiction Prize (twice), the Porter Fleming Competition, The Southern Writers Symposium Emerging Writers Fiction Contest, The Hub City Hardegree Contest in Fiction, Alabama Conclave First Novel Chapter Contest, and The Jubilee Writing Competition. She has been published in numerous literary journals.
Susan received her undergraduate and master’s degree in English and now works as a book publicist managing media relations for Magic Time Literary Publicity. Writing and the love of literature have been central in her life since early childhood, perhaps beginning when her father read poetry to her and her brother at bedtime.
Jäseniä
Kirja-arvosteluja
I listened to the audio version of this book. Author, Susan Beckham Zurenda narrates the audio version. She does a great job. Her voice is one that is made for audio. It is clear, animated, and because Susan is the author, she is familiar with her characters. Thus she really made them come alive.
The relationship between Eli and Adeline is so lovely. Family bond is the strongest bond. Eli and Adeline showed it in this story. Eli could have come off as depressing due to the tragic event that he went through when he was little but he had a happy deposition. A lot of this was due to Adeline. She never treated him like he had a disability.
Bells for Eli is a heartwarming story that will tug at your heartstrings long after the last page has been turned!… (lisätietoja)
The relationship between Eli and Adeline is so lovely. Family bond is the strongest bond. Eli and Adeline showed it in this story. Eli could have come off as depressing due to the tragic event that he went through when he was little but he had a happy deposition. A lot of this was due to Adeline. She never treated him like he had a disability.
Bells for Eli is a heartwarming story that will tug at your heartstrings long after the last page has been turned!… (lisätietoja)
1 
Cherylk | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Jun 7, 2021 |
Cherylk | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Jun 7, 2021 | This beautifully written debut novel is Southern fiction at its best. I read a lot of Southern fiction and for some reason, I missed this one. It wasn't until I started reading rave reviews that I knew I needed to buy it and I'm really glad that I did. It's a lyrical novel and a coming of age story for two cousins in the South during some tumultuous times in the late part of the 20th century. The story begins in 1959 and ends in 1973.
As the novel begins in 1959, cousins Delia and Eli live across the street from each other in Green Branch, South Carolina. They are only seven months apart in age but at 3, they are already best friends. When Eli drinks some lye that had been stored in a Coke bottle, his life changes completely. He spent months in the hospital while the doctor's tried to save him. When he came home with a hole in his throat so he could breath and another hole in his stomach where he was fed, he could no longer be the active boy that he was before the accident. When school started, Eli was bullied by everyone - he couldn't run, he breathed funny and he smelled. Delia was his defender and kept him safe from the bullies. He wasn't physically harmed at school but the bullying effected his mind for the rest of his life. As a young man, his emotional scars caused him to become a daredevil. He continues to cherish Delia and to protect her from her own troubles, but has no concern for protecting himself. This attitude ruled his life through high school and when he started college. In turn, Delia tries to protect him from the harm caused by his impulsiveness.
This is a beautifully written story about love and friendship that lasts an entire life. The two main characters, Delia and Eli are so well written that they seem like people I knew back in my younger days. What is also nice is that all the supporting characters are well written - the friends, the parents, the grandmother which helps make this a perfectly delightful book. It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel. I am anxiously waiting to read her future books.… (lisätietoja)
As the novel begins in 1959, cousins Delia and Eli live across the street from each other in Green Branch, South Carolina. They are only seven months apart in age but at 3, they are already best friends. When Eli drinks some lye that had been stored in a Coke bottle, his life changes completely. He spent months in the hospital while the doctor's tried to save him. When he came home with a hole in his throat so he could breath and another hole in his stomach where he was fed, he could no longer be the active boy that he was before the accident. When school started, Eli was bullied by everyone - he couldn't run, he breathed funny and he smelled. Delia was his defender and kept him safe from the bullies. He wasn't physically harmed at school but the bullying effected his mind for the rest of his life. As a young man, his emotional scars caused him to become a daredevil. He continues to cherish Delia and to protect her from her own troubles, but has no concern for protecting himself. This attitude ruled his life through high school and when he started college. In turn, Delia tries to protect him from the harm caused by his impulsiveness.
This is a beautifully written story about love and friendship that lasts an entire life. The two main characters, Delia and Eli are so well written that they seem like people I knew back in my younger days. What is also nice is that all the supporting characters are well written - the friends, the parents, the grandmother which helps make this a perfectly delightful book. It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel. I am anxiously waiting to read her future books.… (lisätietoja)
1 susan0316 | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | May 15, 2020 |
susan0316 | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | May 15, 2020 | Bells for Eli by Susan Beckham Zurenda is a coming of age novel that can be read by YA and adults. It tells the story of first cousins Ellison Winfield and Adeline( Delia) Green who live across the street from each other. When she drops out of college in 1978 and returns to her home in South Carolina her parents are confused as to why she dropped out. Not sure what she is going to do, her parents try to encourage her to return but she is adamant about staying home.
When the cousins were both three Eli swallows lye his father has left unattended but by the time they reach adulthood, he is handsome and healthy, but also reckless. They have a close almost forbidden relationship that carries over into their adult relationship.
Eli is not accepted at school and is bullied and Delia spends her time defending him.
This story is so sweet, I became engrossed in the story and became to love both characters. Eli makes the mother in me come out. I wanted to reach out to Eli and protect him from himself. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
The author writes a descriptive and engrossing gothic novel that will appeal to anyone who reads it. I highly recommend it!… (lisätietoja)
When the cousins were both three Eli swallows lye his father has left unattended but by the time they reach adulthood, he is handsome and healthy, but also reckless. They have a close almost forbidden relationship that carries over into their adult relationship.
Eli is not accepted at school and is bullied and Delia spends her time defending him.
This story is so sweet, I became engrossed in the story and became to love both characters. Eli makes the mother in me come out. I wanted to reach out to Eli and protect him from himself. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
The author writes a descriptive and engrossing gothic novel that will appeal to anyone who reads it. I highly recommend it!… (lisätietoja)
1 celticlady53 | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Apr 16, 2020 |
celticlady53 | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Apr 16, 2020 | Palkinnot
Tilastot
- Teokset
- 2
- Jäseniä
- 20
- Suosituimmuussija
- #589,235
- Arvio (tähdet)
- 4.5
- Kirja-arvosteluja
- 4
- ISBN:t
- 5
To be frank , I wasn't sure this was going to be my kind of book, with its tale of a high school romance that crosses the chasms of class and race. It's 2012, and Hazel (Zell) Smalls is a beautiful, intelligent, biracial girl whose family has fallen on hard times and is living in a rundown motel in Ramsey, South Carolina, barely making ends meet. She meets Sterling Lovell, part of the town's upper crust, whose father is a real estate investor whose holdings include the decrepit Red Rose Motel. Sterling is so taken with Zell that he dumps his wealthy longtime girlfriend, Courtney, whose father, Donovan Powell, is the pastor of a local megachurch. The third protagonist is Angela Wilmore, their fifty-ish English teacher, recently widowed, who takes a special interest in the young couple, and also becomes involved with the divorced school principal, Finley Copeland. "The plot thickens" with every chapter, told from these three characters' alternating points of view, adding layer upon layer of their backstories and progressing inexorably towards a rather unexpected yet wholly believable conclusion.
Zurenda, who was herself a high school and college English teacher for more than thirty years, knows her territory, and has created some very sympathetic and utterly believable characters and a story that kept me turning pages way past my regular bedtime. I couldn't WAIT to find out what would happen next. It's that good, really. And it's a story which touches on so many important issues too - class, racism, poverty, homelessness, abortion and more. And a couple of very affecting love stories in the mix too. I was quickly caught up.
I was reminded of other such novels I have read, and wondered if any of them may have been influences for Zurenda. There was Fannie Hurst's IMITATION OF LIFE from the 1930s. And the villainous Reverend Donovan Powell brought to mind Sinclair Lewis's ELMER GANTRY. And the high school setting and its concerned teacher brought back Jon Hassler's fine first novel, STAGGERFORD (1977). And, of course, most of all, I thought of Grace Metalious's 1956 blockbuster 'potboiler,' PEYTON PLACE. THE GIRL FROM THE RED ROSE MOTEL is sorta, kinda that kind of book, but kinder, gentler - better. I loved it. Bravo, Ms Zurenda. My wife is reading it now. My very highest recommendation.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir BOOKLOVER… (lisätietoja)