SUNDAY BOOKS & ARTS

October 1, 2023

THE GIRL FROM THE RED ROSE MOTEL

by Susan Beckham Zurenda

Published by Mercer Univ Press (September 5, 2023), Hardcover – $27, 291 pages
Hardback edition
Kindle Edition

Reviewed by Drew Gallagher
BOOKS

There is a temptation to read The Girl from the Red Rose Motel through the veil of fiction with the comforting thought that the story of Hazel “Zell” Smalls is far removed from the Fredericksburg area and its schools.

Unfortunately, anyone who has driven along Route 1 near the motels south of Four Mile Fork knows that school buses pick up and drop students off every day at their “homes,” where rooms can be rented by the month. Zell’s story is based in South Carolina but could just as easily be set here, and that is one of the many reasons this book resonates.

Zell is a junior in high school who lives in the Red Rose Motel with her little sister, overworked mother, and alcoholic father. Her school day is an escape from the cramped motel room, but school has social pitfalls that keep Zell hidden within herself.

Her goal on most days is to be present without being noticed. That all changes when she serves In-School Suspension (ISS) with Sterling Lovell. ISS is commonplace for Zell for reasons that are seldom of her own making (the book opens with her getting ISS for not cleaning her ROTC uniform, which she is not able to adequately clean at the motel).

For Sterling, however, it is a new experience because he is one of the high school’s chosen few. He ends up there when an English teacher, Ms. Wilmore, does not find amusement in the efforts of Sterling and his equally well-healed friends to disrupt her class. (Author Susan Beckham Zurenda was an English teacher for more than 30 years, so Ms. Wilmore in role as hero is to be expected, but proves to be richly satisfying.)

It may be more lust at first sight when Sterling spies Zell, but he is intrigued to the point that he starts to question his current relationship with the would-be prom queen of their high school.

The story arcs involving Sterling and Zell are familiar, and even Zell can’t help but notice the Cinderella comparison as she cleans motel rooms for extra money and Sterling arrives to pick her up for dates in his carriage that does not require jumper cables like Zell’s mother’s car.

This is a redemptive tale, or should be, but while the reader anticipates the fairytale ending, Zurenda adds another layer, and another layer, and another layer to Zell’s troubled life. There are hard life lessons to be absorbed and no matter how much Sterling might want to love Zell and change her life’s trajectory he is still only a child with a gilded future about to start at Vanderbilt University when he graduates in the spring.

There is an interesting dynamic at play in these pages because Zurenda’s storytelling is well-paced with a number of side stories that propel the book forward, but she also creates friction in not allowing Zell an easy path to the future we all want for her.

We want Zell to escape the Red Rose Motel, and we want Zell to take little sister Chloe with her. She is a noble and beautiful young woman. She has so much to offer the world, but even with the help of an English teacher hero and an earnest boyfriend, her world is still housed in a motel room with threadbare covers, a leaky toilet, and a father pounding Pabst Blue Ribbon while watching professional wrestling.

The best fables and fairy tales are supposed to have morals. The moral of The Girl from the Red Rose Motel is that education remains the gateway to a better life. We just have to hope those motels are on school bus routes with Ms. Wilmores waiting in homeroom.

Drew Gallagher is a freelance writer residing in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is the second most prolific book reviewer and first video book reviewer in the 136-year history of the Free Lance-Star Newspaper. You can find some of his video book reviews at Fredericksburg.com.

‘Murder on the Orient Express’

“There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities…”
– Stephen Schwartz, Wicked

This is an often-retold story. The tale (retold by Ken Ludwig) is a tightly paced extended memory (or narrative) told by Christie’s famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. In Ludwig’s hands, the “whodunit” becomes mingled with the tougher question “who is in the right?” 

In Dame Christie’s stories, we are not asked to like the victim. You really dislike the victim in this production long before they meet their demise. And that’s okay, he’ll only be on the stage alive for fifteen minutes or so. Heh-heh. We really get irritated by Samuel Ratchett (well and irritatingly played by MO Oberle) who seems to have no redeeming qualities and treats everyone around shabbily. Appropriate screams and cries greet the discovery of his body, stabbed eight times from several different angles. How many of them are real, though?

He obviously has a secret. All the characters have secrets. So many secrets. Poirot’s job is not only to find them all out but to decide what his personal role is in deciding justice. He is investigator, judge, and jury in the play. What will he decide?

As Poirot, Seth Drenning portrays the detective’s famous finicky mannerisms well. His Belgian dialect is clear but still allows the actor’s inflection to express strong emotion as well as his worldly sarcastic sense of humor. Ludwig and Drenning bring a lightly comic touch to the performance – almost like a musical.

This was part of senior student Drenning’s assignments in UMW’s Senior Project class, as with most of the other major characters. All present tight, clear performances with textbook dialect work and physical precision.

These include Monsieur Bouc (Niko Salinas), as Poirot’s French comic foil. He fully deserves the laughs he gets. Emma Magner plays Greta Ohlsson, a missionary nurse who is too Germanicly sweet to be true; Maddie Baylor plays Helen Hubbard broadly and hilariously. Her smile is that of a hungry cougar overlaid with a manic Minnesotan goofiness. Colonel Arbuthnot is a steadfast Scot of military bearing and intensity played by Mason Michael Clark; James Shepherd’s French Head Waiter brings a dancer’s physique and French snobbery to the opening scene.

This is an ensemble show with an ensemble cast. Mary Debenham, played by Peyton McCarthy, is joyfully British, although the buoyancy hides a nervous intensity. Cameron Zekreski’s Hector MacQueen is Ratchett’s intense factotum; Michel the Conductor brings us Blaise Wingold’s comic chops and a surprisingly sympathetic turn. Mary Devenham as the Colonel’s married paramour and Cora Denny’s Princess Dragomiroff were all equally effective in roles built specifically to confuse Christie’s master detective. Countess Andrenyi (Emily Kile), provides a beautiful and impossibly accomplished partner in investigation to Poirot.

But none of them are to be trusted – and not only as murder suspects. It still leaves us with the only question: given the choice that faces Poirot in the end, which choice serves justice best?

Let’s take a moment to praise the design and technical staff for the production. If the actors presented their roles with precision and artistry, the four people who turned the stage-filling set in full view of the audience and then faded immediately into the darkness were effective magicians’ assistants.

The design itself was simple and elegant. Every surface was treated, shined, polished, and presented with understated mid-thirties style. Costumes were created and used beautifully (when a perfect sleeve must be cut from period blouse to treat an injured arm, every cut of the scissors made my producer’s brain cry out in pain). Shoes, hair, and properties were well made, in period, and as fun as all of the performances. The lighting made magic happen, timing on lights and sound were just where they had to be. Critics are taught to notice the out-of-place; there was nothing.

My only regret is having seen the show on its second weekend: I’m not able to use this review as a tool to bring more audience members in to see this gem. However, since there were almost no empty seats on September 29, I doubt my efforts were needed.

Dennis Wemm is a retired professor of theatre and communication, having taught and led both departments at Glenville State College for 34 years. In his off time he was president and sometimes Executive Director of the West Virginia Theatre Conference, secretary and president of the Southeastern Theatre Conference, and generally enjoyed a life in theatre.

A Great Day Meeting Readers

The FXBG Advance would like to thank Barnes & Noble, as well as Jane Keller, for hosting the Advance’s Martin Davis, and local writer Jack Bales, at a book signing on Saturday afternoon.

For those who weren’t able to attend, both Martin’s and Jack’s books are for sale at B&N. You can find them on the Local Authors’ table – and yes, they are autographed!

For sports fans of all stripes, and baseball in particular, these titles make great Christmas presents.