The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd *****

As The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd opens, it’s 1964, President Johnson has just signed the Civil Rights Act, and bad things are happening. Against this background, fourteen-year-old Lily Owens, white, runs away from home with her nanny Rosaleen, black. This could have been a horrific story of Jim Crow in South Carolina, but instead, it is a story of the power of love, specifically a group of black women who worship the Black Madonna. The women redeem everyone.

Stereotypes offer a shortcut to understanding people. Often, they are wrong, but they can also be accurate. In my reading, this is a book of stereotypes. The majority of the characters are the women of the Daughters of Mary. They are uniformly spiritual, happy, accepting, and black. They like eating, singing, and hats. They live an idyllic existence in the midst of the Jim Crow south, seemingly untouched by the chaos surrounding them. There are two instances of blacks meeting with the police. Both end well. Like the book, these characters, focus on the details of individuals, instead of the wider community (in contrast to the bees who are all about community).

The protagonist, Lily Owens, is self-obsessed, not surprising for a fourteen-year-old. Her crisis and redemption are all internal. As August, the leader of the Daughters of Mary, tells her:

“And whatever it is that keeps widening your heart, that’s Mary, too, not only the power inside you but the love. And when you get down to it, Lily, that’s the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love—but to persist in love.”

The other redeemed character is her father. He begins as a stereotyped angry, racist, white man. In the end, Lily and the Daughters of Mary see him as redeemed, but nothing is shown of this.

I enjoyed the story and the positive message, but I was left wondering if this was just whitewash for the year 1964. Certainly not the way I remember it.

If you like your history and your endings happy, this is the book. A beautiful book of faith, love, and hope.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.