The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees: A Novel by Sue Monk Kidd 2002 by Penguin Books ISBN: 0142001740 Roaming my "home away from home" - the library - last week, I scanned shelf after shelf of books and just couldn't find the One. Know what I mean? The "One" book or author that grabs your eyes, hooks your attention like trout on a line, and jumps off the shelf into your hands. I couldn't find it. So I asked Lisa, the children's librarian, for a recommendation. Lisa steered me toward Adult Fiction and The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. Odd title? Maybe. Here's what I found: The first thing I noticed was the cover art. "New York Times Bestseller" was plastered across the top, above a half-full jar of honey with a Black Madonna label. "Bestseller" is often enough to raise an eyebrow, maybe two. I find that many "NY Times Bestsellers" appeal to me about as much as Lindbergher cheese. But back to The Secret Life of Bees. This 302-page story is set in South Carolina in 1964. It starts slowly but picks up steam as protagonist Lily Owens, a fourteen year-old trying to come to grips with a painful past, runs away from her "father" - if you could call T. Ray Owens that. One thing leads to another and next thing we know, Lily has sprung her black friend/housekeeper Rosaleen from jail. Rosaleen has been unjustly jailed for "assaulting" some white men who were trying to prevent her from registering to vote. As the story unfolds further, we learn that Lily's life has been shaped by the blurred memory of the afternoon when her mother, Deborah, was killed. Lily was four years old at the time, hiding in the bedroom closet when a gun went off. We're never entirely sure who fired it - whether it was Deborah, struggling with T.Ray (whom Lily refuses to refer to as her "father"), Lily, or just an accident. Whatever happened - and we're never really told categorically - Lily's mother is dead, leaving her alone with T.Ray and Rosaleen, a black woman T.Ray hires out of his peach orchard to help care for his young, motherless daughter. Rosaleen is beaten up in jail and taken to the hospital for stitches. Lily springs her out of the hospital and the pair escapes to Tiburon, South Carolina, a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. In Tiburon Lily and Rosaleen wander into the pepto-bismol pink house of "the calendar girls," May, June, and August Boatwright. Lily and Rosaeleen are taken in by this "eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters," and introduced to the fascinating world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna, aka: Our Lady of Chains. Here Lily finds the true meaning of family and that real love is color blind. A quirkly, bittersweet story, The Secret Life of Bees is "about" a lot of things: a daughter's desperate attempt to understand her mother, her search for her own identity, race relations during the Civil Rights era, and how family can sometimes be found in the most unexpected places. I also think it's about female friendship and how the unique dual balm of truth and kindness offered within that context can help heal the deepest hurts. Filled with realistic emotion, authentic, dynamic characters and heart-felt dialogue, The Secret Life of Bees is lavishly written and filled with hope. Reading it is like opening an unassuming, orphaned gift at Christmas and finding something worth keeping. CAVEAT: The Secret Life of Bees is NOT - and does not pretend to be - a "Christian" book. It isn't a theological treatise, Sunday school lesson, nor an evangelical sermon. It is a novel. Don't take it for anything else. Although the story is rich and imaginative and worth reading, some readers may find parts Bees objectionable. Still worth the read.