Any dream will do

After having written mostly non-fiction and memoirs, first-time novelist Sue Monk Kidd tells a compelling and poignant story of the coming-of-age of 14-year-old Lily Owens, an old and wise soul living in an adolescent’s body. Having lost her mother to a traumatic accident at the age of four, Lily grows up in a bleak world waiting for a little ray of sunshine. Not having witnessed a single moment of affection from her father, T. Ray, Lily finds it hard to mingle and make friends. Her strongest supporter is Rosaleen, a black woman who acts as caretaker of the house and Lily’s stand-in mother. Being an oddball, Lily leads a quiet life lost in her thoughts and tries her best to stay out of everyone’s way.

Set in a time in South Carolina when racial unrest was rampant, Lily decides to throw caution to the wind and finds the means to escape her dreary little world when Rosaleen insults three white men at the market. Seizing the opportunity, both move to Tiburon, South Carolina and are taken in by a black beekeeper, August Boatwright and her sisters, June and May. There, Lily unearths a secret to her mother’s past, discovers the power of family in the unlikeliest of places, finds a true friend in Zachary Taylor, August’s assistant and discovers that humans aren’t very different from bees!

A plot such as this can easily fall into kitschy territory, but Kidd elegantly transcends the fine line separating drivel and lyrical prose to tell a lucid story peppered with humour and insight. She does justice to the inherent wisdom and painful adolescence of Lily, while seamlessly blending the two together. The narrative is fluid, the characters rich and the story an experience that no fiction fanatic should miss. I cried, I laughed, and I savoured every word of it. A must read!