The Music of Bees

Content Warning: This section discusses mental health conditions.

Mental health issues are central to the novel. Jake has depression, Harry experiences social anxiety, and Alice has panic attacks. They’re all, in their own way, isolated figures. Alice keeps to herself and doesn’t much like other people. She describes herself several times as “Alice Island” (139), which her mother once teasingly called her. Most of the time, she likes being alone: “The phrase ‘communal living’ made her skin crawl. Ever since she was a little kid, she had enjoyed her solitude” (68). Now she experiences panic attacks stemming from the death of her husband, and all is not well with her: “She was alone in the world. Alice Island, drawbridge up. Alice All Alone” (179). She tries to hide from public view the reality that she “[is] made of a million tiny broken pieces held together by cookies, solitary driving, and the sheer determination not to go crazy in public” (141). She must find a solution. The solution emerges partly through the help of her therapist, Dr. Zimmerman, and partly through a series of chance events that bring her into contact with Jake and then Harry and enable her to overcome her reclusiveness and create a little community for herself at her farm.