THE WRITER’S EYE with Susan Beckham Zurenda

THE WRITER’S EYE with Susan Beckham Zurenda

Finding Inspiration in Unexpected Places

Where do writers get ideas? Anywhere there’s life is where, and often when least expected. Our new column features authors finding inspiration in surprising ways. It happened to me not long ago on New Year’s Day:

For the first time in, well, a very long time, I hosted a formal meal in my dining room. I’m talking about silver, crystal, white linen napkins—the whole shebang. We ate what Southerners typically eat on the first day of the year: pork (for moving forward), collard greens (to bring paper money) black-eyed peas and rice (for coins), and cornbread (gold color for wealth).

Eleven of us sat around my old mahogany table soaked in mid-afternoon, blue-sky light to celebrate not only the start of the year, but also a dear friend’s 88th birthday. Conversation turned from the University of South Carolina losing to Illinois in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl to long-term marriages, which led to unusualmarriages, which prompted someone to bring up first cousin relationships in my debut novel, Bells for Eli.

I started with facts about first cousin marriage, such as it being legal in 19 states in the US, plus seven states giving permission with restrictions. I told how cousin marriage was common before the Civil War, especially among the landed class, until laws began banning the practice in the 1870s. I mentioned a huge number of marriages throughout human history—as high as 80% according to current estimates—have been between first or second cousins. At some point, I remarked on the irony of Charles Darwin (the man who conceived the theory of natural selection, after all) being the grandchild of first cousins and marrying his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood. That fact led my friend Larry at the other end of the table to ask if I’d ever learned about or met anyone who married a first cousin when I was giving author talks related to Bells for Eli, a story in which first cousins Eli Winfield and Delia Green grapple with their feelings for each other in their teen years.

Faces turned toward me, expectant. (Ain’t it grand when people want to hear what you have to say?) “Sure,” I said. “Several people told me privately they were in love with a first cousin. A couple of folks said they knew people who married a first cousin.” A general exhale in the room followed. “But the most remarkable confession happened during a Q&A after my talk at a country club luncheon in Highlands, NC.” I paused, remembering.

“And?” my friendAnn, prompted me.

“Y’all want dessert and coffee first and then finish the story?” I’d realized all of a sudden plates were empty and it was time to serve my friend Steve’s buttermilk pie. I half stood.

“Hell, no,” someone said.

Alrighty then. I sat and took a sip of water. “During the Q&A at that luncheon, an elegant, elderly lady raised her hand, startling me by standing but not nearly as much as what she said to the room of 35 or so people: ‘My husband and I were first cousins married for more than 50 years until he died. I loved him dearly. I miss him every day.’”

“Do you think that was the first time she ever confessed her marriage to a group like that?” my friend Sally— visiting her brother for the holidays from Canada, where, incidentally, first cousin marriage is legal—asked.

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Can you imagine the relief she must have felt?” Sally posited.

I saw again this beautiful, white-haired woman wearing a blue linen suit and gold jewelry galore. I imagined the courage it took, and with that thought, an idea for a story about a blue-blood young woman breaking a taboo and marrying her first cousin was born. ***

Going forward, I will invite guest authors to share accounts of unexpected inspiration. Don’t miss next month when nationally acclaimed poet Peter Schmitt shares a story of how the kernel of a fantastic poem came to him unawares.