The Honey Thief

by Elizabeth Graver

Book Overview

Elizabeth Graver's first novel, Unravelling, was hailed on publication as "exceptional" (The New York Times Book Review), "a pleasure" (The New Yorker), and "exquisitely poignant and sensual" (The Boston Globe). Now, in her second novel, she proves herself to be a major voice in American fiction. The summer that eleven-year-old Eva is caught shoplifting (for the fourth time), her mother, Miriam, decides the only solution is to move out of the city...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156013908
• ISBN13: 9780156013901
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

3 stars

THE HONEY THIEF by Elizabeth Graver Oh this was incredibly heavy and heartbreaking. As a trigger warning, the story deals with mental illness (bipolar disorder), depression, anxiety and how these affect the relationships between husband/wife, mother/child, friends and family. Then there’s the added stressors of dysfunctional parenting, poor communication, opposing religious beliefs and meddling in-laws - it’s A LOT. I can’t say I enjoyed reading this as it is not a happy, feel good story. However, I do appreciate the raw and honest way the author conveyed the complex and harsh realities of living with someone with a mental health condition while caring for a child and themselves. The end left me feeling underwhelmed and frustrated due to the lack of any significant resolutions or meaningful character arcs/progress. There were too many things left unsaid and left to the imagination. I did learn a lot about bees and honey so there’s that. Rating: 3/5 ⭐️

The honey thief stole my heart

Best line in the book: "Again the thunder clapped. Still Eva stood in the field. Maybe, she thought, a girl struck by lightning would split down the middle and become two girls, and then she'd have a friend." I had to take a breath after that one--very powerful image. The longing Eva feels to fill a void, to have a friend to assuage her grief is palpable.Yet, one can sympathize with Miriam's frustration over trying so hard to make ends meet and meet Eva's needs while balancing the child's "itchy palms" wanting to steal things to fulfill some missing ingredient with her own attempts at a life. The intertwining of the mother and the daughter is done beautifully by Graver. In a summer when honey seemed to be the main topic (Secret Life of Bees) I was inundated with the symbolism of the bees and their hives and their honey. I just happened upon the books back-to-back. Both were great but as a whole, I was more moved and entranced by Graver's work.

leaves a bittersweet taste

Maybe it's because this first fell into my hands when I was just a kid myself (twelve or thirteen maybe), but while I loved and felt connected to all of the characters in the novel, Eva remains the closest, my favorite. What makes this novel wonderful is Graver's ability to capture the desires and fears of four people in very different situations equally belivably. I especially loved the language of Eva's memories, and the way she captured her childhood both the city and the country. I found the language eloquent but unpretencious, appropriate for the tone and characters. I liked all the little touches, the quirks and memories which make all of the characters so memorable, that tie them together. Of the storylines, the realtionship between Miriam and Frances engaged me the most, though Miriam and Eva's relationship was very realistic, not too cliche. Overall, this is a very character driven work, not much happens plot-wise, but the people are enough to draw you in and keep your gaze steady.

WHEN THE CUP OF PAIN RUNNETH OVER...

...it will manifest itself differently for every person who experiences it. In the case of young Eva - Elizabeth Graver's engagingly and vividly drawn heroine - the manifestations include a love/hate/fear-of-loss relationship with her mother Miriam, general adolescent frustration and mistrust of the world in general, and shoplifting. All of Graver's characters in this wonderful novel are well-drawn and emotionally full - and making them even more believable and compelling is the fact that all of them are very far from perfect.As if simply passing into adolescence from childhood isn't difficult enough, Eva is coping with the fact that her dad - whom she remembers as the perfect father, but only in briefly-imaged wisps of memory - died when she was only six. Her mother has told her from the time of his death that he suffered a heart attack - which is one of those amazingly widespread half-lies with which we as human beings become all too familiar as we pass through this life. Eva accepts the story on the surface - but something within her tells her that there is more here than is being revealed to her.Eva and her mother live in New York City at the beginning of the story - a single mom striving valiantly to raise a daughter in a less-than-ideal environment. Her mom's best friend is an Indian woman named Ratha who lives in the apartment on the floor below - and Ratha and Mahesh's daughter Charu is Eva's closest pal. As Eva begins to approach adolescence, she begins to evince troubling behavior - the shoplifting mentioned above, plus a tendency to argue more and more aggressively with Miriam. After several episodes of being caught stealing, Miriam is at her wits' end - and the decision is made that a change of environment might be the best thing for both of them. Pouring over an atlas one evening, they settle on the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York - and they pull up what roots they have acquired and make the move.Eva is bored stiff living in the country. She knows no other children her age, and the woman hired by her mom to baby-sit her (the fact of which angers Eva even further) is more inclined to sit in a chair and snore the afternoon away than to spend any quality time with her young charge. Eva begins to explore the area on a second-hand bike that her mom buys for her - and she makes an interesting discovery. Cycling down a dusty country road one day, she comes across a card table set up with several jaws of honey - along with a home-made sign indicating a price, and a small lockbox with a slot for payment. Tempted to steal the honey, she holds back at first - then her curiosity gets the better of her, and she sneaks onto the property behind the card table, and discovers a row of beehives.Eva soon meets Burl, the owner of the property and the hives - one of the gentlest (if flawed - he IS human, after all) characters I've run across in some time. Burl is annoyed at first that his privacy has been breached - but he soon warms t

As sweet as honey!

The Honey Thief is a lucid and beautiful novel about how the errors of the past haunt the present and how a widowed wife and daughter deal with bottled up feelings. Do secrets affect relationships and every day life? After eleven-year-old Eva is picked up on her fourth shoplifting charge, her mother, Miriam, decides to move from Manhattan to a quiet town in New York State. Lonely, Eva bonds with a middle-aged beekeeper named Burl. But Eva hasn't felt compelled to tell her mother about her new friend. Also, Miriam has never told Eva about her father's death. She told her he died of a heart attack. But is that the truth? The disturbing and heart-wrenching way her father died could affect Eva's future. As tension mounts between mother and daughter, Miriam wonders if she should open up to her daughter. There are some haunting scenes in this book. The Honey Thief has beautiful language; it has a rather lyrical feel to it. I have fallen in love with this book; there are few novels about family dilemmas that touch me this way. With compelling characters and exquisite language, The Honey Thief is as sweet and as rich as, well, honey. I highly recommend this title.

A Hauntingly complex and moving novel

I found this novel completely engrossing and incredibly moving. The story of Eva and the effect her past has on her present seemed so real to me. The characters are all trying so hard to manage their lives but have all kinds of human frailties. And I loved all the details about bees and beekeeping, which add a whole other layer to the book. As someone in the mental health profession, I also thought the depiction of mental illness and its effect on families was both accurate and wrenching. All-told,this is one of the best novels I've read in the last few years.