Bookraft

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a coming of age story in three senses. First it is the story of Lily Owens, a 14 year old South Carolina peach farm girl who is being brought up by her father T.Ray with the help of a black maid, Rosaleen in the heady years of 1964 - Jack Kennedy assassinated, the Soviet specter, and Civil Rights Bill passed in Congress. Its tumultuous times reflected in the story. Ten years before, Lily's mom, Debra, was killed by gunshot after she came home after being away for 3 months. T. Ray and Debra were fighting in front of Lily when a gun fell to the floor ... and the story turns on Lily's failed memories of what happened next.

The narration by Lily evolves and intertwines with comments about the nature of bees and beekeeping plus Lily's almost preternatural ability to pick up and note odours, colors, fragrances,tastes, and distinctive natural sounds. Perhaps this ability is compensation for the increasingly hard life at home with T.Ray - and her inability to thrive at school despite her reading and writing skills.

However, one more punishment by kneeling on grits has Lily desperate to leave home. When Rosaleen gets herself thrown in jail for spitting on the boots of some South Carolina CrakerJacks - a desperate flight to anywhere ensues for Lily and Rosaleen. Anywhere quickly becomes Tiburon South Carolina - the address on a label for Black Madonna Honey. This label and a picture of her Mom is the guiding light for Lily and Rosaleen as they head out of Sylvan and for safety by distance. And to their surprise they find it at the very same Tiburon beekeeping farm kept by the Boatright sisters.

The balance of the story is of Lily coming of age in a Black family as she slowly confronts the demon of what she may or may not have done. The second coming of age is the effects of the Civil Rights Bill first on blacks awakening and the diverse nature of the pushback from Southerners. The final coming of age is an evolving embracing of God and spirituality by Lily fanned by the eclectic services practiced by the Boatright sisters. What makes this latter transformation most convincing is Lily's ability to see and feel the nature of events so sensually.

Again, the audiobook succeeds so well because of the superb reading by Judy Lamia. She has captured Lily's teenage voice, hesitation, and then bald face frankness [or lying, as Lily is good at this]. But the whole family of Boatright sisters: May, June, and August each has a distinctive tone and inflections such that no introduction is needed. And thus with bees and the honey and the warmth and tragedy of the Boatright family, the reader/listener is drawn in as surely as Lily to a wondrous family and life adventure.