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Southern Mothers The Secret Life of Bees is the debut novel by Sue Monk Kidd, a writer best known for her memoir, Dance of the Dissident Daughter. Kidd hails from South Carolina, so naturally, her novel is set in her home state. It tells the story of Lily, a fourteen-year-old on the brink of womanhood, searching for a place in the world and the truth about the mother she lost ten years previously (who died when a gun in four-year-old Lily's own hand fired accidentally). Lily is raised by her father T. Ray--whose punishment consists of making her kneel on grits for hours at a time--and her black nanny, Rosaleen. When Rosaleen makes trouble with white men in town and is imprisoned, Lily sneaks her out of jail and the pair flees to Tiburon, South Carolina, a town mentioned in her mother's things. There, they are taken in by the black "calendar sisters," May, June, and August, and Lily is introduced to the magical world of bee-keeping--as well as to truths about herself, her mother, religion, and life itself. Kidd's ability to intertwine "the secret life of bees" with Lily's own secret life is ingenious. This novel is overwhelming in its symbolism while at the same time touching in its simplicity. Kidd writes with effortless grace, and Lily is a strong, believable narrator. The novel discusses issues of race with an acute sensitivity to time period and location; Lily's apparent indifference to skin color is endearing. What will make this book beloved to generations of women to come, though, is the feminine fellowship within its pages. The Secret Life of Bees shows that any woman, regardless of blood relation or race, can be a mother--as long as she loves her child.