The Improper Life Of Bezellia Grove

Description

Nobody in Nashville has a bigger name to live up to than Bezellia Grove. As a Grove, she belongs to one of city’s most prominent families and is expected to embrace her position in high society. That means speaking fluent French, dancing at cotillions with boys from other important families, and mastering the art of the perfect smile. Also looming large is her given name Bezellia, which has been passed down for generations to the first daughter born to the eldest Grove. The others in the long line of Bezellias shortened the ancestral name to Bee, Zee or Zell. But Bezellia refuses all nicknames and dreams that one day she, too, will be remembered for her original namesake’s courage and passion. Though she leads a life of privilege, being a Grove is far from easy. Her mother hides her drinking but her alcoholism is hardly a secret. Her father, who spends long hours at work, is distant and inaccessible. For as long as she can remember, she’s been raised by Maizelle, the nanny, and Nathaniel, the handyman. To Bezellia, Maizelle and Nathaniel are cherished family members. To her parents, they will never be more than servants. Relationships are complicated in 1960s Nashville, where society remains neatly ordered by class, status and skin color. Black servants aren’t supposed to eat at the same table as their white employers. Black boys aren’t supposed to make conversation with white girls. And they certainly aren’t supposed to fall in love. When Bezellia has a clandestine affair with Nathaniel’s son, Samuel, their romance is met with anger and fear from both families. In a time and place where rebelling against the rules carries a steep price, Bezellia Grove must decide which of her names will be the one that defines her.

About the Author

Susan Gregg Gilmore was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1961. Although her artist mother bought her daughter her first easel and box of paints when she was five, it was her fathers love of family storytelling that captured their young daughters attention.Gregg Gilmore knew at an early age that she wanted to write but was soon drawn to journalism not fiction. While at the University of Virginia, she wrote for the student paper, The Cavalier Daily, and held an internship at the Nashville Banner. But after graduation, her interests shifted to museum work and she took a secretarial position with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.A year later, she entered graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin where she earned a Masters of Arts in American Studies. Still drawn to the written word, she asked one of her professors what she should do at this point with her writing. He told her she needed to live life first.So she did. She married in 1983 and, with her husband, Dan, raised three daughters.She has since made hundreds of cupcakes for bake sales, chaired school book fairs, and taught Vacation Bible School all the while writing for papers including the Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor and the Chattanooga News-Free Press. While on staff at the Free Press, Gregg Gilmore wrote a weekly column about parenting in the South.Her first novel, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen, is rooted in summer vacations spent with her paternal grandmother and grandfather, a revival-bred preacher, who after church on Sundays, always took his granddaughters to the Dairy Queen.Gregg Gilmore currently lives in Nashville."

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