THE VANISHING HALF
by Brit Bennett
Was there a more highly recommended book published this year than The Vanishing Half? It appears on everyone’s “Best-of 2020” reading lists and was recommended to me by friends and by my son. Naturally, I had very high expectations for the book, and it mostly came through for me. Bennett follows twin teenage sisters Desiree and Stella Vignes as they run away from their small, southern, Black community to the big city of New Orleans and a life of freedom together. Only, after a short while, Stella ends up running away from Desiree to a new life where she “passes” as white, marries a white man and renounces everything about her former life, including her sister.
As far-fetched as the book’s premise was for me to accept, the poignancy of Bennett’s portrayal of each sister’s life without the other sister, and how each tries to reconcile her choices, redeemed the book for me. That the story plays out over generations of the Vignes family from the 1950s to the 1990s, added to its appeal. Bennett’s tale explores racial identity with a brutal honesty. This complicated narrative of family ties and societal expectations will draw you in and stay with you long after you’ve finished reading. (Liz)
P.S. As I often do after reading a book by an author new to me, I picked up another book by Bennett written before The Vanishing Half called The Mothers. In many ways, I prefer the earlier book to the later one. It’s the heart-wrenching story of a seventeen-year-old girl left on her own to deal with a pregnancy resulting from her secret relationship with the twenty-one-year-old local pastor’s son. The repercussions of her choices haunt her and several other members of her community long after those choices were made. I recommend this book highly.
A SECOND HELPING
Bennett’s book has received a lot of great press and I found it a good read, even if its plot was not totally believable. The author does a wonderful job unravelling the story’s puzzle pieces at her own pace. All four women who drive the narrative reveal a great deal about how our perceptions of race—even our own race—can change our entire lives. (Lily)
