During an interview some years ago a successful Alabama novelist explained to me the pattern of her coming-of age novels: “I chase my protagonist up a tree and then throw rocks at her!” she said. Susan Zurenda’s second novel, set in South Carolina in 2012, certainly follows this formula.
Her heroine is a bright, friendly, well-balanced, kind girl named Hazel, called Zell, who has lived with her father, mother, and younger sister in a shabby, extended-stay motel room for more than two years. This little family has already suffered a good deal. Her father, formerly a regular hard-working fellow, has been cheated out of his share of a delivery business, has lost his driving license due to a DUI, and has for a year or so sat in his “grubby green velour recliner” drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon by the case while his wife, Zell’s mama, works at a nursing home. He is, of course, vulgar and abusive.
There are developments, some possibly good, but confusing, others terrible. On the possibly good but confusing side, Zell meets a wealthy, nice, athletic, pretty well-adjusted boy named Sterling Lovell who is not as spoiled and obnoxious as he might be. They are worlds apart culturally, but he sees Zell’s wonderful qualities and is taken with her. This causes considerable disruption at Sterling’s house since his mother is a pampered snob and his girlfriend Courtney is the queen of the popular girls.
Courtney’s father is the pompous preacher of a successful megachurch on the edge of town. Parishioners have to tithe to join. Small but joyful, irresistible spoiler alert: the reverend will be revealed and disgraced as the greedy hypocrite he is. We learn Sterling’s parents have already disowned his sister—she moved to Atlanta and disclosed she was a lesbian. Clearly, they would have no patience with is relationship with Cinderella Zell. Also, among Sterling’s father’s many properties and investments, he owns the dreadful Red Rose Motel. This is a small-town story. No secrets survive for long here.
But this novel actually contains two love stories. These teens have a smart, caring English teacher, Angela Wilmore, recently widowed, who is falling in love with her boss, the high school principal, a nice single man. This is forbidden—disproportionate power relationship, we are told. One or both could lose his or her, or their, jobs. This part seemed a stretcher to me but in the novel, it is the case.
These nice people are vulnerable to catastrophe and in fact things get worse, fast. Imagine all the things that could go wrong—death, injury, public disgrace, heartbreak, depression, confusion, loneliness—all this and more shall come to pass, and yet there is, in moderation, a happy ending.
