Zelda's Bed spans 72 hours in Montgomery, Alabama. Making a pilgrimage plagued by travel delays and extreme heat, Klecko spends an August weekend at the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum to launch The Dead Fitzgeralds, the first book in his Fitzgerald trilogy. Located in Montgomery's Cloverdale neighborhood, the museum is in a home where the couple lived briefly in 1931; it now shares space with an Airbnb. For Klecko, a stranger in a strange land, being in the South is surreal and intriguing. A place where he thrives as he delivers his message about the Fitzgeralds. Once the mission is complete, he wanders to Hilltop where he does tarot readings for a line of people stretched out the door of a Montgomery nightclub into the summer heat. From there, he bides his time well into the night, a bottle of Crown Royal at his side, under a sprawling magnolia tree in the Fitzgeralds' front yard.
The mystery of Zelda is revealed during a night he spends in her bedroom. And he discovers the sad charm of Zelda's love for her Montgomery hometown, and her dreams for the future, as he trudges, parched and hungover through Oakwood Cemetery on a Sunday morning.
In real time, it's hard to notice
Silence without exception
Leads up to
The crescendo of a moment
In 72 hours, Klecko experiences the moments of a lifetime and the kindness of strangers in a place called Montgomery, Alabama.