Bee Season
54 pages • 1-hour read
Myla GoldbergBee Season
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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness, death, emotional abuse, bullying, mental illness, pregnancy loss, sexual content, and substance use.
Chapter 1 Summary
At 11 o’clock in the morning, the spelling bee begins in Ms. Bergermeyer’s fourth/fifth-grade classroom at McKinley Elementary School. Eliza Naumann, a fifth grader in a lower-performing class, expects to fail. She has grown used to being treated as academically mediocre. As Ms. Bergermeyer works through the rows, Eliza begins correcting her classmates’ mistakes in her head. To her surprise, she realizes that she’s spelling every word correctly. After spelling “raspberry,” she stands straighter. By the end of the first round, she is one of the few students still standing.
Eliza recalls how, three years earlier, she was a second grader in Ms. Lodowski’s class. Students were called out alphabetically for selection into the Talented and Gifted (TAG) program. Ms. Lodowski selected certain students but skipped Eliza entirely.
In the present, Eliza wins her class bee by spelling “weird” correctly, becoming the last student standing. She joins other class winners for the school bee in the cafeteria, overseen by Principal Dr. Morris. Dr. Morris recognizes Eliza but is puzzled by her presence among the school’s best students. This confusion causes Eliza to recall a Parents’ Night meeting in which her father, Saul Naumann, a cantor, questioned her exclusion from TAG. Dr. Morris dismissed him, urging him to appreciate Eliza and ending the conversation abruptly. After being passed over for TAG, Eliza was placed in lower-level reading groups.
At the school bee, the final round narrows to Eliza, Brad Fry, and Sinna Bhagudori. Sinna misspells “immanent,” and Brad misspells “possibility.” Eliza wins by spelling “correspondence,” marking her first clear achievement. Eliza slips the notice of the district bee under her father’s closed study door, hoping for recognition, but the envelope goes unnoticed in his study.
The narrative flashes back to Saul’s youth. Born Sal Newman to Henry and Lisa Newman, he grew up helping in his father’s car-repair business. At 13, his mother revealed their Jewish heritage. Saul learned that his father had renounced his faith after being rejected by his grandfather Yehudah for marrying Lisa, whom Yehudah deemed not Jewish enough. After Lisa’s death from cancer, the rift between father and son deepened. Saul later used his student status to avoid the Vietnam War, further straining his relationship with his father.
In college, Saul discovered LSD and Jewish mysticism simultaneously, believing that they were connected. He became a campus celebrity as an LSD guide and entered rabbinical school on scholarship. His scholarship was revoked after he convinced his roommate to take LSD, resulting in the roommate painting himself blue and white and declaring himself the new Israeli prime minister in the dean’s office. Saul moved into a burned-out attic, where he pursued self-directed Jewish studies while attending synagogue services.
In the present, Eliza and her brother, Aaron Neumann, attend Friday-night services at Beth Amicha Synagogue. Aaron, a natural at Hebrew recitation, feels like a star at the synagogue and imagines that he’s admired by others. Eliza, unable to read Hebrew well, feels disconnected.
For years, Saul has opened Eliza’s report cards only to find mostly average grades. Each time, he responded with quiet disappointment before retreating to his study, leaving Eliza fixated on his reaction. Now, Eliza regrets slipping the notice under the door. After three days of silence, she begins doubting her achievement and suspects that Saul might be embarrassed that his daughter can only spell.
Chapter 2 Summary
On Friday night, less than 24 hours before the district bee, Eliza can’t sleep. She finds her mother, Miriam Naumann, a lawyer, cleaning the kitchen after midnight. Miriam needs only three hours of sleep nightly and keeps her kitchen in strict order. Eliza considers telling her mother about the bee but hesitates, uncertain about how to interrupt her concentration, and begins to doubt that the bee happened at all.
Miriam removes condiments from the refrigerator, wiping each one and lining them precisely on the floor. Eliza asks if her mother cleans because she wants to or needs to in order to sleep. Miriam doesn’t respond, leaving Eliza’s question unanswered.
The narrative flashes back to Miriam’s childhood. Born to wealthy parents Melvin and Ruth Grossman after years of miscarriages, she became the repository for intensified parental expectations. An exceptional but obsessive child, she forbade anyone from touching her toys and insisted that her underwear be washed twice. Her parents interpreted her eccentricity as a sign of intelligence. At boarding school, she discovered her social maladjustment but excelled academically; the library became her refuge. In college, she developed notable powers of concentration; she once remained absorbed in a book during a fire alarm that evacuated the entire building.
Miriam met Saul while finishing law school. He was working as a research assistant, having abandoned drugs to pursue mystical scholarship. Their courtship consisted of attending academic lectures together. Saul was drawn to Miriam’s intellectual discipline and unconventional mannerisms. Miriam, inexperienced with men, saw Saul as willing to indulge her interests. Before they became intimate, she researched sex in the library, viewing it as a skill to master.
They bonded over their lack of family ties and mutual desire for children. Saul had been disowned by his father, while Miriam’s parents died in a car accident during college. Miriam saw Saul as a partner who would support her ambitions while maintaining her independence. Saul saw Miriam as the means to a book-lined study and a lifestyle conducive to his intellectual pursuits. Both were certain that these arrangements equaled love.
On Saturday morning, Eliza goes to Aaron for help getting to the bee.
Chapter 3 Summary
Aaron is shirtless as Eliza asks him to drive her to the bee. He initially hesitates since he’s a cautious driver and has never been asked for a ride. When Eliza explains that she needs to get to the district bee in Norristown, Aaron is shocked and impressed, assuming that their father would be pleased. Eliza reveals that she thinks Saul knows but has said nothing, and she tells Aaron about the lost envelope.
Aaron and Eliza go to Saul’s study, where he’s engrossed in a book. Aaron gets his attention and asks about the envelope. Saul is delighted and surprised to learn that Eliza won the school bee. When Eliza accuses him of knowing all week, Saul insists that he never received the envelope. Aaron finds it buried in the papers on the floor. Saul reads the notice with reverence and calls it a beautiful thing.
The narrative flashes back to Eliza and Aaron’s close childhood relationship, centered on imaginative games where Aaron piloted her to Neptune and battled monsters. This bond lasted until four months into Eliza’s kindergarten year. During a fire alarm, Eliza wandered behind bushes and witnessed bullies Marvin Bussy and Billy Mamula beating Aaron behind the school bushes. Aaron, lying passively on the ground, locked eyes with Eliza. She returned to the swings without looking back. Aaron refused to tell Saul or Dr. Morris who attacked him, repeatedly saying that he fell. That day, Saul brought Aaron into his study and forged a new bond, telling him that they were a team and that what they did in the study cancelled out whatever happened outside. Aaron agreed, imagining his father by his side as they battled legions of Marvin Bussys together.
Eliza recalls the Saturday when Aaron stopped playing with her. He called their games “stupid” and walked into Saul’s study as if it were no big deal. Her memory has disconnected this from the bullying incident the same week. She tried playing alone but couldn’t stop hearing “stupid” in her head. Aaron withdrew from her, and Eliza became increasingly aware of his social isolation.
In the present, because Saul is helping Adam Lubinsky prepare for his bar mitzvah and Miriam is at work, Aaron drives Eliza to Norristown. They get stuck behind a truck with a misspelled sign, and Eliza worries that it’s a bad omen. Aaron almost mentions her TAG exclusion, a taboo topic in the family.
At age eight, Aaron mistook the blinking light on an airplane’s wing for God, sparking a private spiritual quest. He began watching clouds and everyday objects for signs of God, even briefly hoping that poor eyesight would allow him to see God through glasses.
At the bee, Eliza registers with an elderly woman who mentions a new photo-identification rule due to a past incident but lets Eliza register without one. Aaron sits in the back, expecting that Eliza will be eliminated early. Backstage, Eliza notices that other girls have study materials and is glad that Saul isn’t there to witness her failure.
Eliza discovers an innate ability: When she hears a word, it appears in her mind as a physical form, with the letters arranging themselves until they’re perfect. The bee comes down to Eliza and Matthew Harris, a small boy with a pituitary condition. Eliza wins with “vacuous.” She receives a trophy and poses for the Times-Herald newspaper photographer. Organizers instruct her to notify them if she can’t attend the state bee so that Matthew can replace her. On the ride home, Aaron is quiet, observing Eliza with unease.
The narrative flashes back to Aaron’s bar mitzvah at age 13. Everything was flawless as he led the service, acting as both cantor and rabbi. While chanting his Haftorah portion, a warm flush spread through his body. Suddenly, he felt connected to everyone in the synagogue, seeing through 46 pairs of eyes and feeling 46 heartbeats. For one breathtaking moment, he felt completely unself-conscious and experienced a sense of total acceptance and love. The moment passed as he finished, but he decided that this was a genuine encounter with God and kept the experience to himself.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
In the opening chapters, spelling and orthographic recognition structure Eliza’s movement from academic obscurity into visibility within institutional and familial settings. Placed in a class for “unimpressive” children, she discovers an unexpected skill with words during her fourth/fifth-grade class spelling bee. Her ability to silently correct her classmates’ mistakes establishes spelling as an internal, automatic process, and her consecutive victories reposition her within a system that previously overlooked her. Teachers and administrators turn orthographic recall into a public spectacle, and the competitions place heavy psychological pressure on the children. Her innate ability to visualize words introduces the theme of Language Without Communication. At first, spelling is a private, instinctual experience that gives her an internal sense of order. As she begins to compete, however, this internal system becomes externally legible, and letters function as a visible form of competence associated with the possibility of recognition from her father, shifting language into a medium through which approval might be secured.
The layout of the Naumann household maps the family’s emotional fractures, particularly through the symbol of Saul’s study. The novel describes the study as a small, windowless room overflowing with books and papers, where Saul shuts himself away to pursue Jewish mysticism and block out the world. Access to this space becomes a measure of conditional parental approval, which supports the theme of Expectations and Family Breakdown. After classmates bullied Aaron by grinding berries and needles into his chest, Saul brought him into the study and declared them an intellectual team, telling him, “[W]hat we do in here cancels out double whatever they do out there” (32). This moment links intellectual participation with emotional protection, positioning the study as a site where validation is tied to cognitive engagement. Eliza, excluded from this sanctuary, remains outside the closed door.
Years later, she slides her spelling bee notice under the same door, and it disappears into the clutter of papers on the floor. Saul’s retreat into a text-governed realm shows that he prioritizes scholarly potential over affection. The study becomes an exclusionary zone that divides the children into those Saul deems intellectually useful and those he labels unremarkable, reproducing earlier institutional hierarchies such as the TAG classification within the structure of the home.
Miriam’s late-night routines structure interaction within the household and shape the dynamics of her relationship with Saul. Eliza watches her mother clean the kitchen after midnight, taking every condiment out of the refrigerator, wiping each container, and lining them up precisely on the floor. These actions organize the domestic space into controlled, repeatable systems that limit interruption and regulate engagement with others. Flashbacks reveal that her relationship with Saul was a calculated arrangement: Miriam wanted a househusband who would support her career ambitions, and Saul wanted an income that would fund his scholarly lifestyle and secure him a book-lined study. Their shared belief that “these things equal love” frames marriage through aligned practical expectations and intellectual compatibility (22).
Their early physical relationship followed the same structured logic: Miriam prepared by studying texts such as The Joy of Sex and approached intimacy as a skill to be mastered. She maintained control during the encounter by insisting on undressing herself and folding her clothes before proceeding, and she engaged with Saul’s body with focused curiosity so that physical intimacy remained organized and contained. This limited the development of sustained emotional exchange and reinforces the broader pattern of separation within the household.
When Eliza attempts conversation with her mother, Miriam’s focused attention does not extend into sustained engagement, leaving Eliza without a response that supports emotional exchange. In the vacuum created by their parents’ emotional unavailability, the children pursue private quests for meaning, which introduces the theme of Individual Searches for Meaning and Emotional Distance. Aaron’s spiritual development unfolds outside family structures. At Beth Amicha Synagogue, he appears to be a model Jewish youth and excels at Hebrew recitation, while Eliza struggles to connect with services. Yet Aaron’s religious awakenings remain secret. His early perception of a blinking airplane light as a divine signal initiated an ongoing search for signs of God in ordinary objects.
This search culminated during his bar mitzvah in an experience of collective awareness, where he perceived himself as connected to others present. He understood this as a moment of total acceptance and connection. He has kept the experience to himself, not sharing it with his father, the synagogue’s cantor. Aaron’s decision to withhold this experience indicates that religious practice within the family doesn’t extend into shared understanding or dialogue. Like Saul in his study and Miriam in her kitchen, Aaron compartmentalizes his spiritual life, maintaining separation between internal experience and external interaction and reinforcing patterns of individualized meaning making across the household.
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