Brower is an editor and freelance writer. In this essay, he discusses the importance of mysteries in the characters' lives in The Secret Life of Bees.

As suggested even in its title, the driving forces behind the characters' actions in Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees are mysteries. They may be mysteries that characters cherish—as with the kind represented by the supernatural events of the story of Our Lady of Chains recited ritually by her worshippers, the Daughters of Mary—or ones that they want desperately to resolve, as with Lily Owens's pursuit of answers about her mother's life and death. Characters keep secrets even from those they love, and nature seems to withhold its secrets from all except those who know how to look for them.

Lily's relationship with her mother, Deborah, whom Lily accidentally shot and killed when she was four years...