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Lily tells her remarkable tale of longing and love in an idiom and accent heard far south of the Mason-Dixon Line, but the lessons learned during her odyssey into the world of bees and their "secret life" are universal and everlasting. Fourteen-year-old Lily Owens lost her beloved mother when she was only four—under tragic circumstances clouded by time and secrecy. She later found a fiercely protective "stand-in," her abusive father's outspoken housekeeper, Rosaleen. Ignoring differences in age and color—and the fact that racial hatred seethed during the summer of 1964 in rural South Carolina—these two unlikely companions set off on a seemingly aimless pilgrimage that ends at the home of a trio of eccentric bee-keeping black sisters.
Bee Yourself
August said, “Listen to me now, Lily. I’m going to tell you something I want you always to remember, all right?” Her face had grown serious. Intent. Her eyes did not blink. “All right,” I said, and I felt something electric slide down my spine. “Our Lady is not some magical being out there somewhere, like a fairy godmother. She’s not the statue in the parlor. She’s something inside of you. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” “Our Lady is inside me,” I repeated, not sure I did. “You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside.” ~Sue Monk Kidd, from "The Secret Life of Bees"
Crazy Secret Bee Fans and the Things They Do!
A book club in Atlanta held a "Daughters of Mary" party the evening they discussed the book. They showed up wearing grand and outrageous hats that would have made the "daughters" in the novel proud.
After reading the book a psychotherapist in Washington D.C. built a "wailing wall" on the property behind her office, so her clients, like the character May, could have a means to engage in private rituals of expressing their grief and suffering.
A reading group in South Carolina created jars of Black Madonna honey, complete with the Black Madonna label.
A Favorite Writers Quote
When studying the craft of fiction writing, I came across a quote by Leo Tolstoy that made a big impression on me. I copied it down, saved it. A few years later when I started The Secret Life of Bees, I pulled it out of my old notes and kept it on my desk throughout the writing: ~authors website
| “The aim of an artist is not to solve a problem irrefutably, but to make people love life in all its countless, inexhaustible manifestations. If I were told that I could write a novel whereby I might irrefutably establish what seemed to me the correct point of view on all social problems, I would not even devote two hours to such a novel; but if I were to be told that what I should write would be read in twenty years’ time by those by who are now children and that they would laugh and cry over it, and love life, I would devote all my own life and all my energies to it.” ~Tolstoy |
