Eli, Ely

by Ezekiel Tyrus

A San Francisco dramedy of sex, tears, and a life lived in not-so-quiet desperation. Unstable, struggling writer, Eli Trocchi is in a relationship with serious grad student, Jennifer Ely. Friends speculate they hooked-up to say their own names during sex. In this tragicomedy, Miss Ely breaks up with Eli the same week he is fired from a sales job. Humiliated, the writer proceeds to have a meltdown both hilarious and sad, reflecting upon a lifetime of bad decisions, abject failure and vivid experiences. Through Eli, we discover another San Francisco, one as eccentric and deeply flawed as the character himself. "Eli, Ely' is a gritty tour de force through the hidden corners of San Francisco. It's sexy and violent and Tyrus holds nothing back. Read with caution and have a therapist on call to get you through the hardcore passages." - Tony DuShane San Francisco Chronicle columnist and author of Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk Cleaver Magazine calls Ezekiel Tyrus a "San Francisco provocateur" and says "Eli, Ely is brave and honest-and ultimately a big hearted book."

ebook

First published July 3, 2013

About the author

Just got back from 3 months in Costa Rica, currently living in the greater Orlando/Space Coast area of FL.

I wrote another novel down in Costa Rica which I hope gets published soon.

I will start taking this website more seriously and thank you everybody that has been here all along.

This is what I wrote two years ago. It doesn't really apply anymore:

I'm pretty much a career bouncer, i.e. The Asshole by the Door. (But I'm not an asshole. That's just an expression for bouncers and security people.) Currently, I work as a bouncer at a ghetto Walgreens.. Some Walgreens have bouncers now. I've been a waiter, a car salesman, I've sold school supplies over the telephone in GA., I've driven strippers to bachelor parties, I've been an actor, a ghetto porn shop manager, a truck-driver for a gourmet dog food company in FL. and publicly, I ask for a job (or a regular paycheck) and a place to crash to support my writing. Universe, God, Goddess, Allah, Jesus, Elvis, are you listening?

I'll wash dishes in Tangier, if you want me to. Just, money, a flop, a writing desk with chair, a laptop, red-ink pen and journal, and that's it.

Been in San Francisco off and on since '95 but have lived in London, Atlanta, Athens, GA, Seattle, and everywhere in Florida, the place of my birth.

My first novel, 'Eli,Ely' is published by hardheadpress. You should read it.

My favorite writers are David Markson, Jack Kerouac, Joseph Mitchell, Erskine Caldwell and John Hopkins.

Never married, no children but if I were to have a one, how do you feel about Napoleon for a first name?

Napoleon Tyrus.

For a boy or a girl.

As a Performance Storyteller, I've had three one man shows in San Francisco and have performed in The San Francisco Fringe Festival. 'The Experience Junkie' about some of my life decisions, 'Booty Call Etiquette' about a booty call I actually turned-down, and 'I Never Fucked Mrs. G.' about a lecherous high school teacher I had in the 1980s who slept with many of my classmates.

Reviews

[James Hummel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eli Trocchi is an asshole, selfish, egotistical, harassing, incompetent and a man slut who blames his girlfriend when he cheats. He's also surprisingly empathetic, observant, bright, romantic, proficient, well-hung, a means-well kinda guy who is struggling to learn some very important life lessons, as we all do. Eli is the person you wish the best for, but also thinks he deserves what he gets when he falls on his face. And then, you admire him all the more for his relentless perseverance as he stands up again and pushes forward, even as everything he's built is falling down around him.
Ezekial Tyrus has woven together in intricately complex character full of the shining admirations and unfortunate downfalls of the human character. This is not the story of you're everyday joe faced with extraordinary fantastical circumstances. No, this is a much more honest portrayal of a struggling soul caught between his desires for a future that isn't his for the taking and the crushing disappointment of that reality. This is the story of a man who doesn't get it. But, one day you're pretty sure that he will. That's a story I can get into. Thumbs all the way up!

[Maria Sharpe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The narrator immediately invites you into an intimate relationship with his girlfriend whom he is obviously crazy about. As Eli, the protagonist, peels away the layers of his own personality for the reader to see, one is left with an uneasy feeling. You may not even want to read on for the sheer 'ick factor.' As a woman, I guess this was one side of a man who jumped to depicting the play-by-play of sex with his 'it girl' that completely turned me off.

But if you stick around and get to the real meat of the story and more importantly who Ely is on the inside, you are thoroughly won over by his imaginative description of life in the grittier side of San Francisco. A bevy of wacked-out characters come to life and allude to the fact that Ely is an open, sensitive guy who modestly pulls from the advice of varied friends and local vagrants. You learn how he begins to figure things out and work through a broken heart via his recall of past experiences and lightbulb moments that come from anything and everything including a stranger's dog at the park who seems to telepathically give him a sign.

Tyrus reminds me of a modern day Bukowski. The never-successful, but ever-striving figure who is ultimately rich with experience. A colorful storyteller.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frank Kafka once said "“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for?...we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."

This applies - in spades - to Eli, Ely.

Eli is an improbably sympathetic protagonist that I think most of us (or the people that I know, anyway) will find a little too close for comfort. He acts like a shithead in spite of knowing better. But who doesn't? I rooted for him all the way through.

This is a laugh-out-loud funny, morbidly lifelike account of the successive failures that characterize life and love for the creative class in the 21st century, giving Adelle Waldman’s The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. a run for its money in the “most (frighteningly) realistic male character of 2013” category, and introducing Tyrus as an author that contemporary literature lovers would do well to watch.

Two thumbs way up.

[John Grochalski · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Eli Trocchi, novelist and performance storyteller, Ezekiel Tyrus, has given as a man at once brash and boastful, as he is deep down flawed and sensitive and in some cases, brilliantly clueless as to reason why his relationship with Jennifer Ely ended. Eli is a hard character to keep on the page as he seems to want to jump off it at every other sentence. The novel is a funny, gritty, sex-laden wild ride into the San Francisco night that keeps coming and coming at you like a prizefighter looking for that one great punch. There were moments in the book were I found myself laughing out loud at Eli's antics, and then cringing at the audacity of the man. Not for the weak of heart. When i finsihed i tossed the book up there with my Fante's and Bukowskis, and my holy Kerouacs and said, there you go, boys. there you go.

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book at the Beat Museum in San Francisco where the author, Ezekiel Tyrus, was working. I'd been browsing and commented on the extensive collection of Charles Bukowski. He mentioned an author who had been referred to as "a slacker Bukowski" which piqued my interest. Turns out he was talking about himself.

From page 1, I was hooked - dragged through a frantic ride along with Eli; getting to meet his friends; voyeuristically participating in his sexual encounters; trying to stay with him as he unravels. Is he in control or out of control? Does he need advice or validation? Do we feel sympathy or frustration? More importantly, many passages made me laugh out loud. Absolutely loved the extended discussion between Eli and Ely about "The Giving Tree". (Completely agreed with Eli!)

This book must and will be shared.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will make you laugh, make you flinch, make you want to visit San Francisco, and make you want to leave it behind. An unflinchingly honest look at the struggles of a man to come to grips with the relationship he is losing and who he is in the magnificent yet challenging city of San Francisco. There are moments of his uniquely personal story that everyone can relate to. This book is about what it means to be human, how we long to make meaningful connections, and how we often end up failing miserably in spite of our best efforts. A must-read for anyone who loves San Francisco, anyone who loves the Beat poets, or anyone really.

[Lyndsey Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. The reader is introduced to the intimate details of Eli's relationship with his girlfriend right off the bat. It's obvious that he has deep feelings for the girl. I really liked him and found myself hoping that everything would work out for him. Eli may be selfish and egotistical, but I felt empathy for him, even if he did things that may not have been deserving of it.

The book put me reader through an unexpected emotional roller coaster, and I found myself not wanting it to end. Tyrus definitely is the voice of a new generation. I only expect great things from him in the future and I can't wait to read what he comes up with next!

[Brad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and hope to read a sequel soon! The author masterfully wove rich expressions of complex thoughts, feelings, and relationships to create an enjoyable experience for the reader. Great character development, excellent dialogue, everything tightly connected, evoked several emotions, including uncontained laughter as well as joy, sorrow, and sincere empathy. Very well done; one of the few books I'll reread more than once.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eli is a bastard, but I still want what's best for him. That's a testament to what a great story-teller Tyrus is. I may start giving this book out as a gift!

[Austin Schmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eli Trocchi is not a bad person. He may often leave a passing stranger, acquaintance, or even a friend with a nasty taste in their mouth, but he does have good intentions. Well, most of the time. At any rate, it would take a book to know why he does what he does when he does it. This is what Ezekiel Tyrus presents in visceral and compelling vividness with his debut novel, "Eli,Ely." It is an intimate portrait of a man who appreciates art and women and sex and crude practical jokes, with a bellyful of good or bad food and more than a few stiff drinks. And the fallout such a lifestyle coughs back up is only so desperate if no inspiration can be drawn from it when the smoke clears.

While Tyrus's autobiographical fiction charts a week in the life of a more mature Eli, the stream of consciousness narrative takes the reader back months, sometimes years, to reflect on the potential cause of a fresh rift. The eponymous second-half of the novel's title, Jennifer Ely, wants a break with little to no explanation as to why. In turn, Eli looks back on his life for signs of where he might have gone wrong or been led astray.

Eli wants, and is capable of, more in life. Fleshing out the many faux pas buried in his past serves as a form of soul-searching. These recollections range from stirring love letters to searing splitsville missives, and through his notoriety as the leading raconteur among his pals. Occasionally he realizes that apologies are in order but never peddles half-assed excuses. This is perhaps his most admirable trait, on top of being a talented and committed writer. Nothing if not industrious, he habitually juggles an active social life, to say nothing of a devilishly active love life, with odd jobs and aspirations to be a published author in an uncertain time – both in his personal situation and, to a broader extent, sociopolitically.

One of the novel's most impressive endeavors is how an immediate post-9/11 era is brought to life and made to feel nostalgic. No easy feat. Perhaps one few authors have achieved outside of modern espionage thrillers. Who, after all, is actively sentimental about the early noughties? Yet Tyrus pursues it with élan. And pulls it off. The reader wants to meet each of the wide array of characters, from the elusive Jennifer Ely herself down to an obnoxious accidental-career-waiter-slash-pagan offered up as Eli's comically inept antagonist; to visit the various restaurants, seedy bookstores, and subterranean shitholes Tyrus describes so appropriately in all their sticky and pungent glory; to really drink, really screw, and write a short story capturing every feeling, thrust, and pull in the precise way that Tyrus seems to wrangle so effortlessly.

Some of the digressions can appear tangential at first, but they unfailingly come back around to the punch line that is, and has always been, Eli's life. Which is no skin off his nose since he ridicules himself with the best of them; the first to point and last to laugh. As Tyrus presents them, such diversions are always welcome. Even as they, often as not, amount to wallowing around in the muck and mire of a young 21st century San Francisco underground. To be sure, some bawdy anecdotes are enough to make the protagonist of Henry Miller's seminal "Tropic of Cancer" or Hank Chinaski, Charles Bukowski's perennial alter ego, blush something crimson.

Reading about the loves and vices – usually hand in glove – of Eli Trocchi is the fun minus the blinding hangover. It's the intimacy preceding a breakup without shouldering the true heartache, though anyone will readily sympathize with Eli. Yes, even when he is at his worst. Some of the more world-weary readers will take it in further, all the way to real empathy, because this is human ugliness and error in all it's bona fide beauty. As admirably buck naked as Tyrus allows himself to be, it's a debut that will speak most urgently to those who are truly honest with themselves about their own failings in life and love. In any case, it will inspire readers to lead a life well lived and ask for absolution when necessary. Just no excuses.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Nobody roots for Goliath." Eli, Ely is a book about being young in early 21st Century San Francisco that I recognize. Alcohol, sex and frustrated creative and career ambitions are common subject matter that, nevertheless, are as authentic a subject and theme as a broken nose — and I mean that in a good way. Anchored around a summer love of misunderstandings and near connects, narrator Eli struggles with stability and working a restaurant job he has outgrown while living in a North Beach residential hotel and wondering why so many of his peers seem more successful than he is. He tries to migrate from being a performance artist to becoming a serious writer while feeling disgust at hitting his thirties and still being poor. Driving the plot of the book, and Eli's barely checked angst, is a sexy, inflamed affair with a Berkeley philosophy major who is younger than him and sends messages that are alternately hot and cold. The Berkeley student is named Ely, making Eli wonder if he genuinely loves her or she appeals to what he fears might be morbid self absorption. Ely wonders the same thing. A prose poem about miscommunication, the style is direct and written from an honest and emotionally direct place. Eli, and Ely, are far from perfect, like most people. Eli, Ely is the kind of flawed antihero narrative that I don't see much of anymore — an expedition into the urban actual not recommended for timid readers and a light shown on the illusive thing that is contemporary romance.

[Josh Karaczewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great character study of a man wrestling with personal demons of addiction, sex, depression, guilt, love, and the creative urge among the denizens of a vibrantly detailed San Francisco setting. Frustrating, rich and true.

[Chris Bales · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read while visiting San Francisco after meeting the author, who was working at the Beat Museum. Very San Francisco book.

[Cyn Posner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was immediately hooked with the sex scene.
Raw and gritty.
Vile and inviting.
Just like the rest of it.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 1.75 of 5

This book was an absolute struggle for me. I started it once, barely got in to it before I got so bored I had to put it down and ignored it for a while. Then I decided I would give it another shot. It did get a little easier to read the second time, and I was able to finish it, but it wasn't something that I couldn't wait each day.

What is this book about? Well...let me quote a couple of lines from the Goodreads description:

Eli Trocchi is in a relationship with serious grad student, Jennifer Ely. Friends speculate they hooked-up to say their own names during sex.

If this sounds raucously funny to you, then you will love this book. If this sounds like someone is working too hard to be funny and that someone might be writing a book based on a simple joke, then you, like me, will likely find this tedious.

Eli is a first-rate loser. He doesn't have any ambition, he can't hold a job, and he can't keep a girlfriend. Yes, he's probably like too many people in the world, but I have no desire to read their stories either. I decided to randomly open this book and share a little of his background (because he likes to talk about himself). Here is the first thing I read:

Then I hit thirty and forgave myself for not being a raver by remembering there were actual reasons why I chose not to go to raves. The music sucked. My friends and I were skinheads, heavily tattooed and muscular. We'd openly taunt the young men we saw who dressed like toddlers in bright, baggy garish clothes. ... Women dressed as children had a disharmonious effect on my hard-on.

A skinhead who taunted others? Not a friend of mine. And it does seem to be his hard-on that drives him. That's true of most men, but most men are able to understand when they are responding to lust and also seek something other than immediate gratification. Something beyond being able to shout his own name during sex.

I can't help but comment on the comments I've seen on Goodreads. Before this review, there are ten actual reviews, all posting five stars. But the reviewers write things like: "Eli Trocchi is an asshole, selfish, egotistical, harassing, incompetent and a man slut who blames his girlfriend when he cheats." (5 stars) "You may not even want to read on for the sheer 'ick factor.' As a woman, I guess this was one side of a man who jumped to depicting the play-by-play of sex with his 'it girl' that completely turned me off." (5 stars) "Eli may be selfish and egotistical, but I felt empathy for him, even if he did things that may not have been deserving of it." (5 stars) "Eli is a bastard, but I still want what's best for him." (5 stars)

Clearly there is something in author Ezekiel Tyrus' voice that has attracted some people, despite the despicable character. For me, it wasn't there. The character is just as others have described "selfish and egotistical" and the authors voice does nothing to draw my in (or if it did, Eli immediately pushed me back out). I cannot recommend this book.

Looking for a good book? Eli, Ely by Ezekiel Tyrus is a one-note story of a loser, and that note is "sex."
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Shandi Ilyse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met Ezekiel Tyrus when my friend and I wandered into the Beat Museum in San Francisco during our Spring Break. After chatting us up on the finer points of Jack Kerouac, he humbly suggested that we check out a book that he himself had written. I dug his style, so I bought it instantly. I was eager to begin reading, and I did so at dinner that night and on the plane home. Needless to say, I absorbed this book rather quickly. Thankfully, Ezekiel Tyrus' writing made it very easy to do so. I know a lot of people say, "This book will make you laugh! This book will make you cry! This book will bring you to Jesus!" Well, it didn't bring me to Jesus, but it did take me through a myriad of emotions that kept me very invested in the story and always willing to come back for more. I will keep myself from rambling on because I think reviews should be short and sweet, but you are doing yourself a disservice to ignore this book. It's fun. It's funny. It's sad. It's depressing. It's gritty. It's tender. It's sweet. It's romantic. It's thought-provoking. Simply put, It's fantastic. Do yourself a favor and read "Eli, Ely".

Also if you ever wander in to the Beat Museum while Ezekiel Tyrus himself is there, be sure to get a hug! He gives AWESOME hugs.