Bibliofreakblog

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

I have to confess, I want to make a bunch of stupid puns about this book.  I want to say things like, “Bee the first in your book club to read it!” and “the novel that created a buzz across the nation” and crap like that.  But that would belittle this beautifully written journey, and so, herein, I shall refrain from puns, which really, one should always do anyways.

Sue Monk Kidd’s novel is about Lily, a teenager, who flees town with her nanny, a black woman, Rosaleen, in the 1960’s South.  Lily is running from her abusive father, and Rosaleen from the law, as she has insulted their towns worst racists, for which she was arrested.

Seeking information about her late mother, Lily goes in search of the Boatwright sisters in Tiburon, South Carolina, black women living on their own on the outskirts of town on a bee farm.

August, the oldest of the sisters, lets the fugitives stay with them, and takes Lily under her wing, teaching her the art of bee-keeping.  

But of course, Lily learns more than that.  This is a coming of age story, and features things like Lily’s first romantic encounters and learning to express her thoughts on paper, but it’s also a spiritual quest.

The Boatwright sisters pay homage to the Black Madonna, a statue carved of deep-colored wood.  They are independent, free-thinkers, in a time when it was especially hard to be black, female, and without men.  But they rely on the mystical power of the Black Madonna, and find strength in her and themselves.

While the Boatwright sisters worship the Black Madonna in their own, privately developed way, there is a whole history of such worship, dating back at least to Medieval Europe.  Such icons were not always meant to portray a Madonna of African descent in Europe, but did take on special importance in Latin-American, African and African American communities (Find more books on this subject listed below)

What matters most though, in this almost Magical Realism book (in that it creeps up to, but never goes quite past, the rules of plausibility), is the personal journey, of the characters, and of the reader.

 
Buy The Secret Life of Bees on Amazon

If you like this book/author, you might like:

(my reviews in blue)
The Black Madonna by John Loscher
The Black Madonna by Louisa Ermelino
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Sula by Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
The Color of Water by James McBride
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Unveiling The Secret Life Of Bees by Amy Lignitz Harken
The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe: Tradition and Transformation by Malgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba
Longing for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna by China Galland
The Cult of the Black Virgin by Ean Begg
The Black Madonna Within: Drawings, Dreams, Reflections by Tataya Mata
Black Women in Antiquity by Ivan Van Sertima
The Black Madonna by Fred Gustafson
Middle Passage by Charles Johnson 
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 
The Lace Makers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri 

Other works by Sue Monk Kidd:

When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions 
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine 
God’s Joyful Surprise: Finding Yourself Loved
The Mermaid Chair
Firstlight: The Early Inspirational Writings

With Ann Kidd Taylor:

Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story