Myla Goldberg’s debut novel, Bee Season (2000), is a work of literary fiction that chronicles the intellectual and spiritual awakening of an ordinary girl and the subsequent unraveling of her family. Eleven-year-old Eliza Naumann, long overlooked by her parents and teachers, discovers a previously unrecognized ability. Her unexpected success in a series of spelling bees draws the intense attention of her father, Saul, a scholar of Jewish mysticism who comes to interpret her gift as connected to his spiritual interests. As Saul begins to focus increasingly on Eliza’s preparation for higher-level competitions, the family’s underlying tensions begin to surface, exposing long-standing emotional distance. At the same time, Eliza’s brother, Aaron, begins to struggle with his own sense of identity and belief, while their mother, Miriam, maintains a carefully ordered domestic life shaped by her private preoccupations. The novel explores themes including Individual Searches for Meaning and Emotional Distance, Language Without Communication, and Expectations and Family Breakdown.

Bee Season was a national bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book, and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. The novel is set against the cultural backdrop of the American competitive spelling bee, which, by the late 20th century, became a televised national spectacle that placed significant pressure on young participants. Goldberg, who was raised in a Jewish family, drew on the history of Jewish mysticism, particularly the ecstatic Kabbalah of the 13th-century mystic Abraham Abulafia, to frame the Naumann family’s various quests for transcendence. The book was adapted into a 2005 film starring Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche, and Flora Cross. Goldberg is also the author of the novels Wickett’s Remedy, The False Friend, and Feast Your Eyes.

This guide refers to the 2001 Anchor Books edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness, death, animal death, sexual violence, emotional abuse, bullying, mental illness, pregnancy loss, sexual content, and substance use.

Plot Summary

Eliza Naumann, an ordinary fifth grader in a class for “unimpressive” students, unexpectedly wins her class spelling bee. She surprises herself by correctly spelling words like “raspberry” and is one of the few students left standing after the first round, eventually winning the class bee on the word “weird.” A flashback reveals that in second grade, Eliza was overlooked for the Talented and Gifted program. Her father, Saul Naumann, confronted the principal, Dr. Morris, about her exclusion but was dismissed, leaving Eliza in lower-level classes. Now, Eliza advances to the school-wide spelling bee, where she competes against the school’s smartest students. After the other finalists are eliminated, Eliza wins the bee by correctly spelling “correspondence.”

Eliza slips the victory announcement under the door of her father’s study, a sanctuary filled with books and papers where he pursues his interest in Jewish mysticism. The envelope gets lost in the clutter, and Saul, a cantor at the Beth Amicha Synagogue, remains unaware of her achievement. The Naumann family’s synagogue life is defined by its members’ distinct roles: Saul is the popular, guitar-playing cantor; Eliza’s older brother, Aaron Naumann, is a proficient and proud young Jew; and Eliza feels disconnected from the Hebrew services. As days pass without acknowledgment, Eliza begins to doubt the importance of her win. Unable to sleep, she finds her mother, Miriam Naumann, a lawyer, cleaning the kitchen late at night. A flashback shows Miriam’s isolated childhood and her marriage to Saul, which was based on a sense of mutual utility. She saw him as a househusband who would enable her career, while he saw her as a means to a lifestyle conducive to his mystical studies.

On the morning of the district bee, Eliza asks Aaron to drive her. Their once-close childhood relationship ended after Eliza witnessed Aaron being bullied by two boys, Marvin Bussy and Billy Mamula. As they ground berries and evergreen needles into his chest, Aaron saw Eliza recognize him and then turn away without helping. Afterward, Saul took Aaron into his study and formed a close intellectual bond with him. Now, realizing that Saul is unaware of the bee, Aaron leads Eliza to the study. Saul is overjoyed and finds the lost envelope. Aaron drives Eliza to the competition, recalling a private spiritual quest that began at age eight when he mistook a plane’s blinking wing light for a sign from God. At the bee, Eliza discovers an innate ability to visualize words and wins by spelling “vacuous.” Another flashback reveals that Aaron had a powerful mystical experience at his bar mitzvah, feeling a sense of connection to everyone in the synagogue.

Saul is ecstatic about Eliza’s victory. As she prepares for the area finals, Eliza studies on her own and develops a deep, personal connection to language. The family attends the competition at the Philadelphia Spectrum. During the bee, Saul begins to view Eliza’s spelling technique as connected to mystical practice. Miriam, while watching her daughter, recognizes her own girlhood intensity and feels a pang of regret for her emotional distance. The competition comes down to Eliza and one other boy. She wins with the obscure word “eyrir,” which she visualizes in a flash of insight. Convinced that she’s a mystical prodigy, Saul runs to the stage and lifts her in a triumphant hug.

After the victory, Miriam gives Eliza her treasured childhood kaleidoscope, but Eliza fails to grasp its significance, which disappoints her mother. Miriam’s habit of secretly taking objects, which began in childhood with the theft of a pink rubber ball she associated with a sense of completeness, is kept hidden. She connects this behavior to Saul’s explanation of Tikkun Olam, or “the fixing of the world” (87), believing that she’s gathering scattered pieces to make herself whole. Saul clears a space in his study for Eliza, and they begin an intense training regimen for the national bee. Aaron feels increasingly excluded as his guitar sessions with Saul are replaced by Eliza’s spelling practice. When he confronts Saul at the study door, he is rebuffed. Aaron loses interest in the guitar and begins secretly questioning his Jewish faith, visiting a Catholic church and researching Eastern religions.

The Naumanns travel to Washington, DC, for the National Spelling Bee. Saul begins introducing mystical concepts into Eliza’s training, encouraging her to rely on the letters themselves, but she misspells “gegenschein” and becomes upset. Eliza successfully spells her way through the first day of the bee. On the second day, she experiences the letters forming in her mind while another contestant spells “loquat,” which she understands as supporting Saul’s approach. However, she is eliminated when she misspells “duvetyn.” Around this time, Aaron meets a young Hare Krishna devotee named Chali, who introduces him to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Miriam’s behavior escalates, and she begins breaking into houses; during one attempt, she is attacked by a dog.

As summer begins, Saul and Eliza start a new phase of study based on the writings of the 13th-century Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia. Saul introduces her to permutation exercises and reveals his belief that she can achieve shefa, a divine influx or direct communion with God. He tells her that winning the next national bee will be the sign of her readiness. Meanwhile, Miriam’s nighttime behavior intensifies into increasingly forceful and one-sided sexual encounters with Saul. Unable to cope, he retreats from their bedroom and begins sleeping in his study, and their marital relationship deteriorates further. Aaron becomes deeply involved with ISKCON, becoming a vegetarian and lying about his whereabouts. Then, Miriam is arrested after being caught breaking into a home. The police take Saul to a storage unit where Miriam has kept all the stolen items, arranged in massive, intricate, kaleidoscopic patterns that reveal the scale of her behavior. He also learns from her law firm that she has not worked in over 10 years.

At her arraignment, Miriam is committed to the Holliswood Center for psychiatric observation. When Saul visits, he brings her childhood pink rubber ball, but upon seeing that it’s scuffed and imperfect, she violently rejects him and refuses all visitors. Saul then discovers that Aaron has been lying and has run away to the ISKCON temple. Left alone in the house, Eliza performs a Kabbalistic permutation and takes the “soft” voice of the letters as guidance for her next step. During a later fight between Saul and Aaron, Eliza secretly takes Abulafia’s most advanced text, Life of the Future World, from the study. She performs a powerful and complex ritual involving chanting the “Name of Seventy-Two,” which induces a physically overwhelming mystical experience, culminating in a vision of an all-encompassing, ever-changing divine face.

The morning after the ritual, Eliza wakes up physically sore and emotionally detached. Saul brings Aaron home from the temple, leading to a major confrontation where Saul describes Miriam’s situation and Aaron announces his intention to join the temple. The family settles into a tense truce. As a new bee season begins, Saul attends Eliza’s sixth-grade class spelling bee, expecting her to demonstrate her mystical connection to the letters. After her experience and the changes within her family, Eliza decides to reclaim her own life. When given the word “origami,” she abandons Saul’s mystical techniques, looks directly at her father, and deliberately misspells it with a “y,” ending her spelling career and her mystical journey with him.