Book Review: The Secret Life of Bees

by Sue Monk Kidd

(New York: Viking Press, 2002)

Reviewed by Jeanie Miley

As a lover of novels, I count a book a really good read when the story draws me in so that I see the landscape and the characters become my friends. I count it an important book when the story gives me a glimpse of my own inner landscape, introducing me to a part of myself that I need to know. Sue Monk Kiddą's The Secret Life of Bees is, for me, such a book.

Reading Kidd's autobiographical The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, I had to stop now and then and catch my breath. When I finished it, I called Sue, whom I have known for many years, and said, "I am so proud of you for having the courage to write this book." That book stretched my mind and expanded my vision. Now, The Secret Life of Bees, Kidd's first novel, has stretched my heart, tenderizing and healing it, and I want to say to the author, "Thank you, thank you."

It is, first, the beauty of language that draws me into the story of fourteen-year-old Lily. The descriptions and images alone are enough to make the reading of the work worthwhile. I turn those words and phrases over and over in my mind, savoring them like cold champagne or a sweet, warm mocha.

Kidd writes with an economy and elegance of language. There are no empty phrases as she spins the tale of a young girl's quest for her mother, set in the world of beekeeping and played out against the backdrop of racial tension in the South of 1964. Through her descriptions and the movement of the plot, I experience the courage of women and the power of the unseen initiative of the feminine side of God.

The Secret Life of Bees provides a rich, sensory experience for the reader. I could hear the buzzing of the bees and the singing of the women. I could see the pink house that sheltered the "Calendar sisters" (their first names are August, June, and May), the black women who took in the orphaned white girl. I laughed at the Salvation Gloves and Lily's blunt declaration, "Pious people have always gotten on my nerves." I could feel the waters of the river and the wooden body of the Madonna they called Our Lady of Chains. I could smell the stench of the jail cell and taste August's sweet honey. I delighted in the hats the Daughters of Mary wore.

The story touched me at a deeper level as well. Its texture and depth made me experience the terror evoked by Lily's father, the bitter and vengeful T. Ray who had gone to church for forty years, but "was only getting worse." I sensed Lily's humiliation at his hands and felt the sting from kneeling on Martha White grits, T. Ray's unique form of punishment, on my own knees. I felt the pride in the young girl and the strong women who stood up to his violence. To the credit of the author, I glimpsed for a moment, through the lenses of grace, the father's gaping wounds, wounds he used as weapons on the little girl he could have loved and helped to heal.

I was drawn into the story because I understand the motherwound of the young girl. I could feel that deep, pervasive yearning for the connection to her mother. From the beginning, I understood that that bottomless pit of aching need was the force that pushed Lily to do the things necessary to remove herself from the control of a father who could not keep himself from working out his own issues on an innocent young daughter. I felt the life force in the child/woman, a life force so strong that it propelled her out onto a journey that would lead her to what she needed.

I was drawn into Lily's adventure because I understand the quest for the feminine side of God, a need that must be born within all of us to know that God has a nurturing, gentling side that has been neglected and discounted in a religious culture that identifies itself with power and domination, control and rules, elevating regulations, policies, and punishments to the level of "God's will." There is something vulnerable and open in Lily, something that resonated with the black women who took her in, women who knew, celebrated, and shared the life-giving force of the feminine side of God. It was in these women who manifested mother love to her that Lily encountered the Mother who could heal her.

Lily's story is woven with a golden thread of hope. From the first buzzing of the bees, symbol of the soul and of death and rebirth, I saw the force of Love, attempting to work all things for good in the life of all of the characters, even T. Ray. Some of them, and most especially Lily, could cooperate with that Divine Initiative, following the subtle guidance and seeing the synchronicities in a label from a honey jar and the ways of dealing with roaches.

It was Lily, who trusts more in her intuitive nudges than in the external facts, who was able to see the meaning in ordinary, everyday experiences. It was Lily, the unplanned child and the victim, who walked herself into freedom and into love, led by the initiative of the One she was to meet on her way home. "I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days shining brightly, and we donąt even know it."

I count it a good book when I find myself wanting to buy copies for my own three daughters and my friends. The Secret Life of Bees is such a book. I love it.

[Writers Jeanie Miley and Sue Kidd met as seminary wives in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1969. Each of them has been drawn into the mystery of the divine feminine, the exploration of the unconscious and the ways of feminine spirituality. Each, in her own way, is a dissident daughter.]

Jeanie Miley is a writer and columnist, a workshop and retreat leader.