Book 806: The Music of Bees – Eileen Garvin

I had no expectations of this going in. I grabbed a copy from NetGalley after re-upping my name on the Dutton ARC/Review copy list and if I’m honest I totally chose it because of the cover and the lyricalness of the title.*

I was so glad when I started reading that I fell right into it. Garvin has a way of building place and chosen family that does sometimes feel slow—it’s like COME ON you’re totally going to be BFFs forever we all can see it, just get there—but really is the perfect pace. She also clearly has s huge respect for bees and their place in the pollination cycle.

But what I really took away from this book is that Garvin really knows how to write a book about healing. I’m not sure where she drew her inspiration, but all three stories in the split narrative really spoke to me. And I’m talking better than nonfiction/self-help books that specifically try to address grief and sorry, which is saying something.

Sorrow releases us from common constraints, and in our grief we can be our true selves. If others choose to witness that, to truly see us, well, it changes everything. (Chapter 17)

Of the three, Jake, Alice and Harry, I most identified with Jake for some reason even though I had the least in common with him. His change of attitude/mindset and discovery of beekeeping was just the best and the way he went at it with such passion just really spoke to me. And toward the end when he meets a love interest and he realizes between her, the bees, and his chosen family he has so much to live for I just couldn’t help but sit there with a big grin on my face and a tear in my eye.

He felt better and realized that being alone isn’t always bad. Sometimes being by yourself is better than keeping the wrong company. He felt happy, choosing that. He still had no clear plan, no job and no friends here. But it was OK. Somehow, he knew it was going to be ok. And he would go see his uncle at the hospital tomorrow. (Chapter 7)

Harry was probably the slowest character to develop, but his story was just as impactful as Jake’s and he came just as far with hurdles stemming from anxiety and confidence. And the way Garvin wrote the final scene, I was pleasantly surprised and realized how much of Harry’s mindset I had gotten into and again I teared up. She made the right decision putting his last and starting the chapter/section the way she did. I definitely went from a resigned low to a giddy high when I realized what was happening/had happened!

As long as she made it to the county planning department by 8:30 am five days a week, no one had to know that Alice Holtzman was made of a million tiny broken pieces held together by cookies, solitary driving and the sheer determination not to go crazy in public. (Chapter 12)

And Alice, what can I say. The most mature character and the surprise mother of this ragtag bunch gave life to a post-partner’s death mid-40s bureaucrat finding a new version of herself and finally dealing with the grief of her husband’s loss and realizing that she doesn’t have to or even want to be alone anymore. I really liked Garvin’s description of Alice Island and the opening up of it to a visitor or two. I also hope/assume that she gets another chance at love with her contact at the watershed group! It definitely felt like it was going that way.

The other two big characters in the novel were the bees, perfectly done and fascinatingly written, and the location. If ever there was a fictional work that could use pictures or diagrams this was it. I wanted to see Jake’s drawings, I wanted to see the beehives and the honeycombs. The publisher did a good job with the (I’m assuming real nonfiction) quotes about bees at the beginning of each chapter, but hand drawn/sketched things would’ve been a great addition. And the location, a small rural town in Oregon, was perfect and acted as a character in its own right. From the small-town vibes of everyone knowing everyone else to the description of the kite boarders on the river and the orchards, bee fields, and planning office it felt so real.

The one concern I had was about halfway through when a large portion of Alice’s hives collapsed due to pesticide and I worried the book might go too far into the environmental/bees are important side of thing (which yes, 100% they are more people need to know about this), but I didn’t want the humanness of the story to be lost. Thankfully, it wasn’t, and we saw each of the three characters experience a protest and arrest and how they each handled it and thought they would’ve handled it pre-bee life and it just worked. This wasn’t a negative, but I know some people will get suspicious like I did when it happens, so I thought I’d mention it.

Recommendation: I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I had no expectations going into it and thoroughly enjoyed the read with personable characters, a great setting, and so many life lessons about grief and sorrow. It reads quick but stays with you which isn’t something you usually say together. And randomly, I LOVED the shoutout for Winesap apples! (Wikipedia link) There’s an orchard up here that has them and they’re my all time favorite apples but pretty hard to find.

*I received a copy of The Music of Bees from the publisher via NetGalley in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.

Opening Line: “Jacob Stevenson had the tallest mohawk in the history of Hood River Valley High School.”

Closing Line: “He would return to the little farm at the bottom of the road where his friends waited, where the bees flew, where the wind sang him to sleep and all of it called him home.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

Additional Quotes from The Music of Bees
“Alice’s family was part of that history. The Holtzman orchards were small, but all heirloom stock from the 1900s—Gravensteins, Pippins and Winesaps—not like the mushy Red Delicious apples from your average school lunch.” (Chapter 2)

“The air smelled green and fresh. It pricked something in his heart. This season—when unexpected rain showers swept across the valley floor and the wind turned the orchards into waves of blossoms—had always filled him with hope. The chorus frogs sang in the irrigation ditches and the days lengthened imperceptibly. Hawks perched along the fence line of county roads, and tiny finches darted through the air. Flickers keened in the shadow of the forest. He never told anyone he noticed these things. But spring always brought him a secret joy, the promise of something new. Now he felt his heart try to rise toward it and fall back defeated.” (Chapter 1)

“In his uncle’s wool shirt and his dirty pants, Harry felt like Bilbo Baggins when the trolls are about to make a meal of him.” (Chapter 7)