The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet

 

Paperback Edition

 

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. Many 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' storylines 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. 

***

Title : The Vanishing Half

Author : Brit Bennet

Published date: June 2020, by Riverhead

Genre : Historical Fiction

Language : English

 

"Her death hit in waves. Not a flood, but water lapping steadily at her ankles. You could drown in two inches of water. Maybe grief was the same."

 

I expected a lot when picking up this book from the shelf since it is the best historical fiction in 2020 and I skipped my book queue to read the book every night before I slept. The setting is around the '60s to early '90s, considering the time span and the thickness of the book (about 366 pages), in my opinion, it is the right fit.  

There was a really small town called Mallard where the citizens are mostly colored people from the previous generation. When the era has not been kind to colored persons, the situation made them adapt, they are trying to dilute their color and live like white-wanna be.

The thing is, colored persons recognize other colored persons. Though people can overlook Desiree and Stella as white people, they are too afraid to try the white person lane, or white person sections in the swimming pool.

Desiree and Stella are identical twins. Desiree, as a big sister, is the braver but also the reckless one. Meanwhile, Stella is the calculated one, quiet, smart, and obedient. Then one day, the twin decided to escape the town at the age of sixteen.

Adventurous Desiree leads the way. Underage and having no money, they worked illegally and lived in a dinged and small apartment.

But it was several years ago, the book opened with the arrival of Desiree at Mallard. Bringing a small girl as black as a jet, but without a husband, even more Stella. The town, gossipping but welcomes Desire back. And their single mother, shocked as ever especially saw the little girl, Kennedy, but welcome it anyhow.

Kennedy, being the only blackest girl in the school, learn how to be invisible as a shadow. Her colored skin stands out so much that it is hard for her to have a friend, and accept herself. In that era, black and girl is separated and treated differently.

Kennedy loves to run, she's the fastest runner, and she knows, she needs to escape Mallard, like her never-met-aunt, Stella. After graduating from High School, Kennedy decided to pursue her study where she cannot be recognized anymore.

At California, Kennedy finally found a community that was willing to befriend her without glancing at her skin color. There, Kennedy found love and encounter her mother's past, Stella.

Stella, of course, is a very different person. She's white, rich, and unreachable. Kennedy met Stella's daughter and naturally, Stella want to inform them that they are cousins. But of course, it is not easy.
There are so many issues brought in this book, racial, LGBTQ, social class, domestic violence on top of the self-seeking phase for the bi-racial protagonists. Though from the blurbs, we can assume that the main spotlight will be on the twins, it is not really. The main spotlight is Kennedy, a black girl from a small town, struggling her way to be accepted by society.

The story of course stellar, the dictions are beautiful. But in my opinion, it is losing its depths. I want to know more about the interesting-Desiree, her character is built up elegantly, but most of the time, the story is about Kennedy. There are parts that we looking forward to reading the detail, the days how Stella finally chose to be white, her inner battle, because adult Stella, transform into a robotic rich woman that barely shows her heart.

But overall, it is a very good read. Many books and movies raise racial issues, and this is one of the outstanding.