books:: sue monk kidd, "the secret life of bees"

Sue Monk Kidd's best-selling "The Secret Life of Bees" was one of those books that surprised publishers when it started selling like hotcakes... due to word of mouth. It never made a name of itself until it was published in paperback form; by then, friends had recommended friends to pick up this Southern gem.

"The Secret Life of Bees" is an endearing read set in South Carolina, just after Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lily is a white child who, at the age of four, may have accidentally killed her mother with a gun; she's still not sure who picked up the gun and fired the fatal shot. She runs away from her abusive father, leaving behind her road-side job selling peaches and her dear teacher, who told her she has a chance to become an English professor. Instead, she helps her family's housekeeper, Rosaleen, escape from jail and the negro-colored wing of the hospital after Rosaleen gets beat up on her way to register to vote. They end up in Tiburon, South Carolina, following Lily's premonition and determination to find answers to her mother's mysterious death and trinkets Lily holds sacred. There, they meet the bee-keeping sisters named after different days of the month -- May, June and August -- and their lives become inextricably linked and forever changed.

The book steps out of history and paints portraits of people -- black and white, young and old, powerful (lawyers) and powerless ("colored" folk) -- in a volatile time of desegregation. Each chapter also cleverly follows a quotation at the beginning of each chapter, the quotation a reflection of the ways of bees and, perhaps, the ways of humankind.

There are some memorable revelations about bees and people (i.e., "The whole problem with people is...they know what matters, but they don't choose it.") and some provocative philosophies about womanhood and spirituality (i.e., "Our Lady is not some magical being out there somewhere, like a fairy godmother. She's something inside of you... You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do.").

My one complaint is that while engaging, the book needs a better editor to make the dialogue flow better and the writing more fluid. There are some moments in which the dialogue or writing stalls, and unnecessarily so.