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The Secret Life of Bees
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The Secret Life of Bees is a historical fiction 2002 bestselling novel by American author Sue Monk Kidd. It received much critical acclaim and was a New York Times bestseller. It was nominated for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and has been adapted into a film by Gina Prince-Bythewood that stars Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah and Jennifer Hudson. The film was released on October 17, 2008.
in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life is shaped by her blurred memory of the afternoon of her mother's accidental death.
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Encyclopedia
The Secret Life of Bees is a historical fiction 2002 bestselling novel by American author Sue Monk Kidd. It received much critical acclaim and was a New York Times bestseller. It was nominated for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and has been adapted into a film by Gina Prince-Bythewood that stars Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah and Jennifer Hudson. The film was released on October 17, 2008.
Synopsis
Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life is shaped by her blurred memory of the afternoon of her mother's accidental death. When Lily's black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three racists in town, they escape to Tiburon, South Carolina.
Lily is lonely at home and feels that she is unloved by her father, T. Ray. However, with the help of August Boatwright, she is able to find that she has many people that love and care for her.
Lily is faced with trying to find out who she is because at her home she is not allowed to ask questions about her past. Lily does this in many ways, such as writing down her thoughts in a notebook, and finding her first love, Zachary Taylor. She finds out who she really is when she learns about her mother's past.
Influences
As a child, Kidd, like Lily, also had a nanny who habitually chewed snuff. She included a few traits and sayings from her own nanny to Rosaleen. Although the author wasn't forced to kneel on grits as punishment, both she and Lily share the same disaffection for them.
An article by Rita Williams includes the following section of an interview with Sue Monk Kidd:
- ""Why write about these black women when you're white?" I asked her interestingly.
- "Because I grew up surrounded by black women. I feel they are like hidden royalty dwelling among us, and we need to rupture our old assumptions and develop the willingness to see them as they are," she replied. When I asked her to tell me the origin of this story, she grew pensive, closing her dark eyes almost as if she were meditating.
- "As a girl, I lived in a country house where at least 50,000 bees hived within the walls of one of our shut-off rooms," she said. "When I went in there, I could hear humming-honey leaking through the wall and puddling on the floor. That image stayed with me for years before I decided to write it. And then when I finally did begin, I was told it might sell as a short story but not as a novel. I sold the short story.... But it wouldn't let me go. Four years later, I had to go back and write the novel."
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