The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Synopsis
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ story lines intersect?

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

Review

Over Christmas I read The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett after it appeared in so many of my fellow bloggers best books of the year and also on Waterstone’s list. This is the story of identical twins Stella and Desiree, who at sixteen run away from their small town to start a new life in the city. Ten years later one twin returns to her old home with her young black daughter whilst the other twin is married an living as a white woman. From the 1950’s to the 1990’s, this is a story of two young women, their life choices, their children and how race effects them.

After reading The Vanishing Half I understand why this book was one of the top reads of 2020. Brit Bennett writes an intricate and emotional story of two young women, once so close, who find their lives suddenly on very different paths. Both Desiree and Stella had a troubled childhood, seeing their father lynched at a young age. Both want to escape their hometown of Mallard where the only life opportunities for them are as cleaners for the rich white families. Running away to New Orleans gives them their freedom, and for Stella a job as a secretary, a job that is a catalyst for her to runaway a second time, this time leaving her sister behind. After this point they have no contact, and Stella never even said goodbye. Her employer seeing her as a white women gives her the chance to live a very different life, a life of privilege, of being like the women whose houses she had cleaned. However, this is a life where their is the element of fear, of being found out. Desiree has the opposite life, back in her hometown, living as a black woman with her daughter, working at a diner and having little money. Their daughters Jude and Reese, very different in looks and status, one privileged but not appreciating it the other poor but like her mother wanting a new life. It is fascinating seeing them together, and how the decisons their mothers made effects their lives.

Obviously this book had race, and how we perceive it at it’s centre. The many different shades of skin colour, how people perceive themselves, how others perceive them is an important discussion in this book. The town of Mallard, where Desiree and Stella are from, is a town founded by the son of a white plantation owner and black slave mother. The town over the years has worked to breed out darker skin tones towards a lighter population, literally trying to erase the past. This is the reason the town is uncomfortable and prejudice towards Desiree’s daughter Jude, her dark skin colour a reminder of the past they are trying to forget. Brit Bennett also looks at how the past influences the future, how experiences of childhood and the lives of their parents can set the expectations of the children. Brit Bennett’s writing is an articulate discussion of many subjects that are at the centre of today’s society including sexuality, diversity, equality and class.

The Vanishing Half is a beautifully written, emotive and fascinating read. The intricate relationships between the twins and eventually their daughters weaves a complex and emotional web that draws you in and doesn’t let go. This really is a stunning and engaging read and one I highly recommend. Since reading this book I have bought Mothers also by Brit Bennett.