The Hero’s Journey never seems to lose its power, whether the Hero is male or female, or whether it takes the reader into the olive groves of Greece, or the canyons of New York. Or, as in Wyatt Mangum’s reimagining, Bee Child, the journey is one with the mysterious wild humming of bees accompanying the Hero, on a strange and wonderful journey into a mythic southern America in the 1840s. The student of the Monomyth will recognize the various elements of the tale: the animal helpers which include the ever-present bees, the wise teachers, and the road of trials, the quest. But in Mangum’s story, this journey is one of light and dark, and of great good and great evil.
Will the intense and relentless suffering Amaron endures at the hands of the supremely wicked Hex, somehow strengthen this chosen, special child, the bee child? Yes, but this strength comes at a cost. Will Amaron somehow live up to his name’s Latin roots, to love – to be found by his true love, this Girl, another chosen one, whom he has never seen? Will the love of the Mothers who come after his birth Mother, a true “bee queen,” sustain Amaron even as he suffers? Despite Hex’s dehumanizing brutality, Amaron survives. He loves and is loved. He stays on the journey, a journey magical and mundane. And throughout the journey are the bees. As Amaron learns and grows, so the reader learns of these creatures whose “busy-ness” has enriched us. But this is Volume 1. Amaron’s journey, how he will enrich his world, is yet to be seen, his quest has yet to be complete. There is more to come.
Take this journey, travel with this Hero and his bees.
– Dr. Warren Rochelle, Professor of English, University of Mary Washington