Sue Monk Kidd

Best-Selling Author Sue Monk Kidd talks to Talk2SV about Secret Life of Bees

My conversation with Sue Monk Kidd

Sandra Varner (SV) - As a middle age black woman born in Louisiana-- I know this story.  Moreover, I was struck by the honesty of the characters.  Specifically, I am moved by the telling of this story as there are so many layers to the period in which it took place, the Civil Rights era. Talk to me about the genesis of The Secret Life of Bees.

Sue Monk Kidd (SMK) - You know it’s really hard to pinpoint this story.  Pieces of this story have been with me since I was 14 years old.  I always wanted to be a writer when I was 13-14, but I took all kinds of circuitous routes before settling down to writing.  I was 30 years old when I started to write seriously and I didn’t write this book until I was 50 years old.  Yes, I was a late bloomer (in that regard).  ‘Secret’ was my first novel and my first venture into fiction.  I wanted to write a novel set in 1964 and I knew that beyond any shadow of doubt.  It was a turning point in my life; I was never the same after that summer; it was the summer when I woke up.  It just defined so much about what I understood about the world and to be able to ask myself, “What is this craziness?”  I didn’t know what to do with all that I saw and witnessed but it was ‘in me.’ So I knew I had to find a story that would be universal and that would transcend race and gender, age and everything.  It would be one of these abiding stories that would be set in 1964, that special historical moment in time of the Civil Rights period.  I always thought of it as “freedom summer.”  My dilemma was how I would tell that story and it started with the bees.  I grew up in an old house and there were bees that lived in one of the walls so that was something directly out of my memory.  Those bees lived in that house a very long time and they made honey in that wall and we just closed that part of the house off and used it as a guest bedroom (laughter).  We just couldn’t get rid of them so we lived with those bees (in the house) and they were part of our family.  So I got an image in my head of this 14-year-old white girl who would lie in bed awake at night and those bees would come through the cracks in the wall and fly around her room which is exactly what they did in our house.  The story just kind of sprouted out of that image.

SV - There are so many powerful lines delivered by the women in this engaging narrative; particularly the line Queen Latifah’s character states about the forbidden sisterly love between two best friends-- one black and one white-- given the prohibitive social discourse of that day.  And, within that strained scenario, the white friend demanded that their friendship exist.  That portion of the dialogue is pivotal in the arc of this story.

SMK - It was important for that to be in the story; there is another line that she delivers that says, “There is no perfect love.”  I feel there is no perfect love in an unjust world.  How do you love perfectly (speaking of the characters) when their worlds were so different and you have these huge divides?  It (that kind of love) just demands so much of the heart.

SV - I believe that there are no accidents in life and things happen as they should; moreover, that life’s chronology is as it should be.  When you look back over the journey that this wonderful story has provided, who were you at the beginning at the onset and who have you become over the course of this journey?  Further, how have you evolved?  And, do you see this story as an instrument that allows us to reflect upon ourselves as human beings?

SMK - I think any good work of fiction should cause you to reflect on questions like that: who am I; what do I want in this life; what is valuable in this life; what matters in this life and; how have we evolved in this journey … in this struggle?  And, yes, I hope that The Secret Life of Bees raises those questions in people’s hearts and minds.  This story began 44 years ago.  When I see how this story-- it’s poignant and very personal to me-- intersects suddenly with where we are in our political life and this determination to vote, to make it matter, to bring down the barriers between race, to transcend all these things; to look back and see where we were then (1964) and where we are now (2008) and how much farther we still have to go.  Yes, we’ve changed rules and laws and made progress in our culture but have we changed in our hearts?  We have the potential to do much more.  I mean, to be able to vote for a black man as President of the United States brings me to my knees, to tell you the truth, but I still think we need to ask ourselves, what’s in our hearts?

SV - There is so much depth in this story and you are to be commended for writing such an emotional tale.  That said, the book sold over 5 million copies before being turned into a feature film.  It is obvious that you are personally attached to it as you should be.  However, how easy or difficult was it for you to turn this closely held, acclaimed and celebrated novel over to someone else’s vision and present your work in film?

SMK - The first time I read the script, of course as a novelist and as someone who feels ownership of this material, because it was created in my mind and in my heart and my soul, to turn it over was a little nerve-racking for me.  But I felt it was worth the risk to bring  this story to a wider audience than even the book would have; to see it in a new way in another medium, I thought it was worth it.  Then when that script came and I saw what Gina Prince-Bythewood did, (Prince-Bythewood directed Love & Basketball, Terry McMillan’s Disappearing Acts for HBO), I was moved by it and I knew that she got it.  She got it and understood what I was doing and I was seeing it in the same way.  It was really about that journey Lily (Dakota Fanning) was making in search of a mother’s love, to find hope, to find love within herself, to find forgiveness and to find redemption.  It was about terrible betrayals and injustices and pain and how we try to heal those wounds.  Gina got all of that and I was so pleased with the script.  When I finally saw the film, I cannot tell you what a beautiful job I thought they did and how true it is to the story.  It was a beautiful thing to see and I loved every performance.

SV - In the latest iteration of this story (now a feature film from FOX Searchlight opening Oct. 17) do you feel that you must carry yourself in a certain way [now] or feel the need to add on layers of responsibility as the author of it?

SMK - I’ve not been asked that before … certainly, I do.  I don’t think I’m real aware of it all the time; of how this script has changed me and what it has meant to write this story and have it impact so many.  To have 5 million people buy a copy of it (the book) is still hard for me to grasp.  So many people have read this story and are passionate about it.  And now, this movie that I hope will make so many more people aware of this story, I find that still surprising and moving.  I’m really grateful about it.  But what does that mean for me as having responsibility for it?  I think I do have a responsibility to my readers to tell the truth whether it’s through fiction or nonfiction because truth comes from an authentic place in me in order ‘to be true.’  That’s the thing I’m striving to do-- to tell the truth-- and to make sure that my stories serve something larger than myself.  I guess that’s my responsibility and it gets a little bigger now.

More on Sue Monk Kidd --

Sue Monk Kidd was born and raised in the tiny town of Sylvester, Georgia, a place that deeply influenced the writing of her first novel The Secret Life of Bees. She discovered her desire to be a writer as a child, listening to her father's imaginative stories.Two books, which she read at the age of fifteen- Thoreau's spiritual memoir, Walden and Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening- had a deep impact on her and would foreshadow the course she herself would eventually take as a writer: writing spiritual memoir and novels.

Her hope for a career in writing was not without an early detour. In what Sue has called an "inexplicable twist that is partly due to a failure of courage and partly due to the cultural climate of the South in 1966," she chose a more traditional path when it came time to go to college. She majored in nursing and graduated in 1970 from Texas Christian University with a B.S. degree, then worked throughout her twenties as a registered nurse. During this time, she married Sanford (Sandy) Kidd and they had two children, Bob and Ann.

Shortly before Sue turned thirty, the pull to writing returned. Living in South Carolina, where her husband Sandy was teaching at a small liberal arts college, she enrolled in writing classes with the intention of writing fiction, but was soon diverted to non-fiction. She began a career as a freelancer, writing personal experience articles, most of them inspirational and art of living pieces. Sue published several hundred articles, primarily in Guideposts Magazine, but also in numerous other publications, newspapers and journals.

It was during Sue's thirties that she began to experience an intellectual and spiritual flowering. She embarked on a serious study of the classics of Western spirituality, depth psychology and mythology, while also reading voluminous amounts of literary fiction. She became deeply influenced by the work of monk, Thomas Merton and psychiatrist, C.G. Jung, which would impact her writing in the years ahead.

Her first book, God's Joyful Surprise, published by Harper SanFrancisco in 1988, describes the beginning of her spiritual searching. Her second book, When the Heart Waits was published by Harper SanFrancisco in 1990, and revealed a deepening of Sue's voice. Rooted in contemplative spirituality, the memoir recounts a vivid spiritual transformation at mid life. While in her early forties, Sue turned her explorations and study to feminist theology. The result was The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, published in 1996 by Harper SanFrancisco. This bold and highly successfully memoir had a groundbreaking effect within religious circles.

When Sue's desire to write fiction returned, she felt, by her own account, intimidated, but took the leap, enrolling in a graduate writing course at Emory University, and studying at Sewanee, Bread Loaf and other writers' conferences. She began by writing and publishing short stories in small literary journals for which she garnered several awards.

When her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees was published by Viking in 2002, it became a genuine literary phenomenon. A story of coming-of-age, race-relations, the search for love and home, the novel tells the story of fourteen year old Lily, who runs away with her black housekeeper in 1964 in South Carolina and the sanctuary they both find in the home of three beekeeping sisters, who revere a Black Madonna.

The Secret Life of Bees has sold more than 5 million copies, spent over two years on the New York Times bestseller list and been published in 35 countries. It was awarded the 2004 Book Sense Paperback book of the Year, nominated for the Orange Prize in England, and chosen as Good Morning America's Read This! Book Club pick. Taught widely now in college and high school classrooms, The Secret Life of Bees is fast becoming a modern classic. It has been produced on stage in New York by The American Place Theater and been adapted into a movie by Fox Searchlight.

Sue's second novel, The Mermaid Chair, has sold more than 1.7 million copies since its publication in the Spring of 2005. Set on a South Carolina barrier island, it tells the story of 42 year old Jessie Sullivan, a married woman who falls in love with a Benedictine monk, and explores themes of mid life marriage and self-awakening. The Mermaid Chair reached the #1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list and remained on the hardcover and paperback list for nine months. Winner of the 2005 Quill Award for General Fiction, the novel has been translated into 23 languages and was produced as a television movie by Lifetime.

In 2006, Firstlight, a collection of Sue's early writings was released in hardcover by Guideposts Books and in paperback by Penguin in 2007. This compilation of inspirational stories, spiritual essays, and meditations has been translated into several languages and has over 200,000 copies in print.

Sue's new book, Traveling with Pomegranates, co-authored with her daughter Ann, is a mother daughter travel memoir due out in 2009.

Sue serves on the board of advisors for Poets & Writers and for Low Country Initiative for the Literay Arts (LILA). She is Writer in Residence at The Sophia Institute in Charleston.

Today Sue lives beside a salt marsh near Charleston, South Carolina with her husband Sandy and their black lab, Lily.

Awards and Recognition

• Nominated for the 2006 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award- The Mermaid Chair
• 2006 Distinguished Alumna of the Year, presented by Texas Christian University
• 2006 South Carolina "The Order of the Palmetto" Award - State's highest civilian honor
• 2005 Winner of the Quill Award in General Fiction - The Mermaid Chair
• 2005 Southeastern Library Association Fiction Award winner - The Secret Life of Bees
• 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year, paperback- The Secret Life of Bees
• Literature To Life Award presented by The American Place Theatre- 2004
• Nominated for the 2004 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award- The Secret Life of Bees.
• Winner of the 2003 SEBA Book of the Year for The Secret Life of Bees
• Finalist for the 2003 Book Sense Book of the Year Award, hardcover- The Secret Life of Bees
• Finalist for the 2003 Boeke Prize in South Africa- The Secret Life of Bees
• Nominated for the 2002 Orange Prize in England- The Secret Life of Bees
• Winner of the 1996 Poets & Writers Exchange Program in Fiction
• Citation in Best American Short Stories 1996, 100 Distinguished Stories for In the Graveyard of Afterbirth.
• 1994 South Carolina Fellowship in Literature by the South Carolina Arts Commission
• Citation in Best American Short Stories 1994, 100 Distinguished Stories- The Secret Life of Bees.
• 1993 Katherine Anne Porter Second Prize in Fiction by the Nimrod/Hardman Awards
• 1994 & 1996 South Carolina Academy of Authors Fellowships in Fiction by the S.C. Academy of Authors