September Books 6) The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd

I have been working my way through various US bestsellers of recent years, due to various manipulations of the top unread books lists in various places. This one is about a teenage white girl in about 1964, who flees her abusive father to the far side of South Carolina, where she ends up living with the same black family of bee-keepers who had sheltered her mother many years before. There’s lots of lovely symbolism in the processes of apiculture and (more unexpectedly) the Blessed Virgin Mary. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that the laudatory blurbs all seemed to be by white critics; I wonder how this has been received in the black community?

One thought on “September Books 6) The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd

  1. “As keen as mustard”, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard it, just seen it in print.

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