Secret Lif of Bees

Lily Melissa Owens -  The novel’s protagonist and narrator. Lily is a fourteen-year-old white girl born on the Fourth of July in 1950. When she was four, she accidentally killed her mother, Deborah. Along with her abusive father, T. Ray, whom she cannot call “Daddy,” she lives on a peach farm in rural South Carolina. Isolated and insecure, Lily fears that she lacks all femininity and imagines that her mother is her guardian angel, watching over and loving her from beyond. Lily loves and trusts Rosaleen, a black housekeeper who helped raise her, and she finds the racism so prevalent in the south confusing. Over the course of the novel, she grows into a loved and loving young woman, who sees beyond skin color.      Lily’s most prized possessions are a few things of her mother’s she found in her father’s attic: a picture of Deborah, a wooden picture of a black Mary, and a pair of white gloves. She loves to write and hopes to one day become a writer. Late in the novel, she finds a close friend and stand-in mother in August Boatwright and her sisters, June and May. In addition, her femininity blooms when she realizes her attraction to Zach, a young black man who helps out on the Boatwright farm. Lily also finds herself enchanted by bees, first by those living inside the walls of her room and later by those on August’s farm.

August Boatwright -  A middle-aged black woman who welcomes Lily into her home. August lives in a pink house in Tiburon, South Carolina, with her two sisters, May and June. Together, May, June, and August are known as “the calendar sisters.” August has chosen not to marry because she does not want to give up the autonomy of her independent womanhood. August works as a beekeeper and honey/beeswax manufacturer on a 28-acre farm she inherited from her grandfather. By selling honey, she supports herself and sisters, as well as Lily and Rosaleen, once they come to stay at her house. August is a warm and loving lady, skinnier than Rosaleen but still... [continues]

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