The Secret Life of Bees
The study of bees and honey become the backdrop for this novel about Lily, a 14-year-old girl who ran away from her small South Carolina town. She had lived with a demanding father since her mother's accidental death ten years before, and Rosaleen, their black maid, was her only companion on the Owen's peach farm.
All Lily remembered of the day her mother died was watching her pack a suitcase, then seeing her mother and father fighting. When a gun was dropped on the floor, Lily picked it up. She later was told she had accidently shot her mother.
But she had little to remember her mother by, only a picture of a Black Madonna which had the town of Tiburon, South Carolina, printed on back. However, this gave Lily and Rosaleen a place to escape to when they left the Owen's peach farm.
In Tiburon, they moved in with three black beekeeping sisters who, some years before, had known Lily's mother during the rougher years of her marriage. They not only owned a thriving business, but also became the center for a religious group of black friends. They worshiped a dark wooden statue of Mary in chains, and called themselves the daughters of Our Lady in Chains.
Lily was the only white in this group, but she got to see how unfairly the blacks were being treated, even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. The only hint of romance in the story was between her and Zach, a black boy who worked with the bees.
Lily is trying to understand the loss of her mother, but she is also trying to replace her. August, the oldest of the beekeeping sisters, fills that position better than anyone else in the story. But, at other times, Lily can imagine Our Lady in Chains as her mother. Even the queen bees she works with teach her something about motherhood.
But Lily can't help but feel abandoned by her own mother and doesn't know whether to forgive her or herself.
Sue Monk Kidd has won a number of awards for her stories and poems, but The Secret Life of Bees is her first novel.