Fourteen-year-old Lily Owens lost her beloved mother when she was only four—under tragic circumstances clouded by time and secrecy. She later found a fiercely protective "stand-in," her abusive father's outspoken housekeeper, Rosaleen. Ignoring differences in age and color—and the fact that racial hatred seethed during the summer of 1964 in rural South Carolina—these two unlikely companions set off on a seemingly aimless pilgrimage that ends at the home of a trio of eccentric bee-keeping black sisters.
Lily tells her remarkable tale of longing and love in an idiom and accent heard far south of the Mason-Dixon Line, but the lessons learned during her odyssey into the world of bees and their "secret life" are universal and everlasting.
In her debut novel, Sue Monk Kidd proves herself adept both at storytelling and at creating characters who are simultaneously outlandish and credible—in other words, worthy to join the ranks of such first-rate Southern stylists as Kaye Gibbons, Anne Rivers Siddons, and Ellen Gilchrist.
Fourteen-year-old Lily Owens tells her own story, capturing our attention from the first moments of this outstanding audiobook. As she explains, her mother is dead, her father hates her, and the popular girls in school laugh at her. The only person who cares is Rosaleen, her black caretaker. When Rosaleen is jailed for pouring snuff juice on the shoes of three obnoxious white men--this is mid-1960s South Carolina--Lily springs her from jail, and together they set off toward their ultimate salvation with three black female honey farmers. The story is funny, heartbreaking, and uplifting all at once. Jenna Lamia delivers a tour de force narration. Her Lily is a particular feat--she sounds believably 14 without being irritatingly young or falsely squeaky. Rosaleen's slow, wry drawl brings this wise character to life. And the men--from the helplessly angry father to the oily preacher--are word perfect. A must listen. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2003 Audie Award Finalist (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine
About the Author
Sue Monk Kidd is the author of two memoirs, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter and When the Heart Waits. She received a Poets and Writers Award for the story that inspired this novel. Her fiction has appeared in several literary journals and two of her stories—including an excerpt from The Secret Life of Bees—were selected as notable stories in Best American Short Stories. She currently lives in South Carolina.
