The Vanishing Half

Brit Bennett's first novel, The Mothers garnered a lot of praise, and deservedly so, but I think this one is even better. It's the story twin sisters, Desiree and Stella, born in a small, poor African-American community in Louisiana in the middle of the 20th century. Both girls leave town together in their teens, but soon part ways. Stella abandons her sister to forge a new life in which she passes for white, marries a well-off man, and has a daughter who knows nothing of her origins, while Desiree, fleeing an abusive marriage, ends up back in their mother's home once more, with her own daughter in tow.

It's a story about identity, of many different kinds and in many senses of the word, about family, about re-inventing yourself, and show more about the difficulties of leaving your past behind you. I really am so deeply impressed by Bennett's writing. She sweeps back and forth between different time periods, and transitions into different points of view so smoothly and compellingly that she makes it look like the easiest thing in the world. (Well, all right, there was one moment where she makes a small, passing mistake about the geography of New Mexico that distracted me rather badly for most of a chapter. But I suspect most people are extremely unlikely to notice that, and I am willing to forgive her for it, considering how darned good everything else about her writing is.) show less

I'm don't usually like stories that revolve around one big lie, as I usually get frustrated and impatient waiting for the inevitable big reveal and its obvious fallout. But the rich characters, their relationships, and the smooth prose offered here engrossed me so fully it ceased to matter to me whether the secret came out at all.

The topics covered include racism and colorism and LGBTQ+ issues, but the story is about mothers and daughters, family and love.

Highly recommended.

I have other book reviews to write, but somehow, writing about The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett feels like the most important review to write given what is happening around the country right now. Its release date of today, 2 June 2020, is timely, as its discussion of race is one we all need to have right now.

The thing is, I don't have the words or experiences to do the novel justice. I am white. I was born into a lower-middle-class family of educators. We did not have a lot of money, but we were not poor by any means. We lived in predominantly white neighborhoods and never had to worry about crime or violence. I went to predominantly white schools, with just enough diversity for the school district leaders to feel good about show more themselves. The police were not something to fear but something to honor and respect. I did not have to choose between my education or getting a job when I was a teenager; I got a job for spending money only. I almost never had to worry about the color of my skin when in certain situations, although I am ashamed to admit that there were certain neighborhoods we passed through to get to my brother's baseball games where we would lock the doors and try not to call attention to ourselves for fear of harassment or even violence against ourselves. In other words, Stella's and Desiree's situations are so far removed from my own as to be almost foreign.

Yet, it is this unfamiliarity that makes such novels like The Vanishing Half so important. We don't just learn about the experiences of others. These novels force us out of our comfort zones by challenging us to look at what makes up reality for millions of others. They demand us to directly look at racism and hatred in ways not available to us, and in so doing, requires us to understand their situations. For me, The Vanishing Half did nothing but raise questions I would love to ask but am afraid to do so because it shows my ignorance of the Black experience.

The story's premise is one that follows the lives of twin girls, born and raised in a poor Louisiana town that prides itself on the whiteness of its denizens, even though the town is a Black town. One of the twins disappears one day, having decided to pass herself off as white, forever leaving her family and heritage in the past to prevent her secret from becoming known. The other twin ends up marrying a very dark black man but moves back home when she starts to fear for her life at the hands of her husband. Both sisters have daughters, whose stories we also follow.

The story itself is impeccably written, balancing between establishing the setting without sacrificing character development. We feel all four ladies' shame and fear, their anxiety, and their love. We care for all four women, in spite of their very different lives. Even if we don't agree with some of their decisions, we appreciate their sacrifices and the journies they travel.

But the questions are what will make me remember The Vanishing Half. More than Stella's passing, more than Jude's compassion, I remain haunted by the questions I have because of their experiences. Just the idea of a Black town that is as white in skin tone and hair and eye color as most of the neighborhoods in which I grew up is fascinating to me and makes me ask what actually defines race? According to the novel, it is not necessarily skin color, and yet, isn't that what we are taught? That we base race on skin color? Yet, this town, which is fictional but I'm sure exists somewhere, identifies itself as a Black community, faced with the same laws of segregation and fears of lynching as any other Black community in the South in the 1950s. Does this mean we define race based on identity? Or is it heritage?

Then there is this idea of degrees of blackness, where even Black people favor those with whiter skin. Desiree sees this firsthand in how the community does not accept her husband and later actively prejudices itself against her dark-skinned daughter. Why would a community do this? Do we, as humans, need to feel like we are better than someone else, so much so that we look down on people of our own race

One cannot discuss The Vanishing Half without talking about Stella's passing over. I admit that there is still a part of me that wonders why this is such a big deal. After all, don't we, as parents, want our children to have a better life than the one we had? So, for a Black mother, would that not mean becoming white if possible? I recognize how ignorant this question is because I do understand that Stella's passing over means that she is making a statement about her heritage being less important to her than her own comfort. But Stella doesn't just pass over because she no longer wants to fight against racism and segregation. She does so because she can and because she likes the feelings passing as white gives her. This put my mind down a completely different path, as I wonder how often people passed over in the past. How often does it happen now? Most importantly, why would someone do it? If you do, do you hate yourself, do you hate your family or your heritage, or is it something else?

Stella's behavior toward Blacks as a white woman of privilege also raises eyebrows and questions. Or maybe it doesn't if you are a BIPOC reading it. I just don't know. I do know I struggled to like Stella as a person as she focused only on the inexplicable idea of how being near another Black person would jeopardize her secret, which then allowed her to treat them as bad or worse as anything she experienced as a child. I don't understand it, and I definitely don't like it or her for doing it.

Lastly, I find it very telling that Stella, as a white woman, is the only one of the four women to get married or remain married. Desiree marries someone who abuses her and leaves him fairly quickly in the novel. She finds her long-time love but never makes it official. Jude finds her one love but does not marry him for various reasons. Kennedy never finds the one. What does this say about the institution of marriage among Blacks versus whites? Is there something Ms. Bennett is saying about marriage in Black culture that I don't understand?

The thing is that I most likely will never get satisfactory answers to my questions, and I think that is okay as well. Learning comes through exposure to new ideas and situations and asking questions about them. I may never understand why Stella does what she does or the level of fear and degradation Desiree and Jude feel, but by reading The Vanishing Half I know more than I did before. The questions the novel raises for me will make me seek out other novels written by Black authors or books about race, and I will continue to seek answers and listen to others' experiences. As a white woman, that is the very least I can do. show less

This is a lovely novel about complicated things. It starts, of course, with two Afro-American twin sisters growing up in the segregated South, one of whom passes for White while the other stays Black. It goes on, passing back and forth in time, to include their daughters. The characters are compelling and (mostly) lovable: I really cared about them. The writing is terrific, vivid and precise without any hint of pretentiousness. And the story is powerful. A terrific book.

Barack Obama listed this as one of his favourite books in 2020. It might not rank as one of my favourites, but in audio format it certainly entertained me on my morning walks.

Desiree and Stella Vignes are twins born in Mallard, Louisiana, a place where only light-skinned blacks live. In 1954, at the age of sixteen, the two run away to New Orleans. Later the two girls go their separate ways and lose contact. Desiree moves to Washington where she marries a very dark-skinned black man with whom she has a daughter Jude. Fourteen years after leaving, Desiree returns to Mallard with Jude who has inherited her father’s blue-black skin.

Meanwhile, Stella has been passing as white. She marries her boss Blake Sanders and they move to Los show more Angeles where they have a daughter Kennedy. No one knows about her past though she lives in constant fear of exposure, especially when Kennedy meets Jude.

Covering about 40 years, the narrative moves back and forth through time and shifts between characters, primarily Desiree, Stella, Jude and Kennedy. The women tend to be foil characters. Desiree is the high-spirited extrovert whereas Stella is the bookish introvert. Desiree embraces her black identity while her twin totally rejects her ethnicity. Jude is hardworking and grounded while her cousin is spoiled and rudderless.

The novel explores how identity is a performance. We all wear masks so there is often a difference between our authentic selves and our projected selves. When I was a teacher, I often mentioned how the profession was much like acting; what students saw was not always the real me but the persona I chose to construct. In the novel, there are many characters who hide parts of themselves. Stella is the major example, of course, but there is also her daughter who as an actor finds her passion in trying different identities. Jude meets Reese, a transsexual who hides his female body, and Barry, a high school teacher who regularly becomes Bianca, a drag queen.

The book also examines the impact of choices on both the one choosing and his/her family. Stella often thinks of the effort needed to maintain her façade. She also lives with a constant fear that someone will see her that she is masquerading as a white. Her life is a lie and so she becomes alienated not just from the family she has rejected but from herself. Kennedy senses that Stella is hiding things and so comes not to trust her mother. Stella pays a high price for passing; she has financial security but she does not feel happy and fulfilled.

Racism is at the heart of so much that happens. Though the twins and their parents are light-skinned, they are not safe from racialized violence, an instance of which scars the girls for life. Stella and Desiree are expected to work as cleaners for whites. Interestingly, Stella’s white life begins when she gets a job as a secretary in the marketing department of the Maison Blanche chain of stores. Because Jude is so dark, when she moves to Mallard she becomes a victim of colorism (a bias against people of darker skin from others within the same race). Stella believes that only as a white can she acquire the stability and security she so desires.

There are a number of coincidences that further the dramatic action but still feel forced. Jude and Kennedy meet by chance in Los Angeles and later in New York. A bounty hunter is hired to find Mrs. Winston and then learns he is looking for the woman who was his first love. Of course, these chance encounters are expected if there is to be any type of reunion.

This book presents many ideas for the reader to consider, so I’d certainly recommend it. The audiobook version narrated by Shayna Small is excellent.

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less

Passing ist ein Phänomen, dass es bereits länger gibt, in Europa aber eher unbekannt ist, obwohl es auch hier existiert. Dabei wird die soziale Identität eines Menschen (Geschlecht, Klasse, Ethnie usw.) von seiner Umwelt nicht erkannt, so dass die damit verbundenen Erwartungen, Rechte und Pflichten nicht existieren. Wie beispielsweise in Deutschland die Juden während des Dritten Reiches, die ihr Jüdischsein verheimlichten, um so der Verfolgung zu entgehen. Heute ist es insbesondere in den USA Thema, wobei Schwarze mit sehr heller Haut für Weiße gehalten und entsprechend behandelt werden, wovon dieses Buch unter anderem auch erzählt.

1938 werden die Zwillinge Desiree und Stella in dem kleinen Nest Mallard im Süden der USA show more geboren, dessen BewohnerInnen es sich zum Ziel setzen, mit jeder Generation hellhäutiger zu werden. Mit 16 Jahren brennen die Beiden durch und gehen nach New Orleans, wo sich ihre Wege trennen. „… Desiree heiratete den dunkelsten Mann den sie finden konnte.“ und bekommt eine Tochter, „… so schwarz, schwärzer geht’s nicht.“
Stella hingegen „… wurde zur weißen Stella.“, was sie jedoch nur sein konnte, „…, wenn Desiree nicht dabei war.“ Sie heiratet einen vermögenden weißen Mann aus dem Geldadel und bekommt eine blonde Tochter.
Die Lebenswege der beiden Frauen entwickeln sich so weit auseinander, dass sie sich nie wieder gesehen hätten, wären ihre Töchter sich nicht begegnet. Denn Desiree kehrt mit ihrer Tochter Jude nach Mallard zurück, während Stella ihr Leben als Weiße in der High Society in Los Angeles führt.

Brit Bennett, die Autorin, zeigt in diesem Buch überdeutlich, wie groß die Unterschiede der Möglichkeiten sind, die je nach Hautfarbe zur Wahl stehen. Während Stella praktisch alles werden kann, bleibt für Desiree letzten Endes der Job in der Kneipe. Aber das Leben auf einer Lüge aufzubauen, hat ebenfalls seinen Preis.
Überzeugend stellt Bennett dar, wie Stella aus Angst, enttarnt zu werden, am heftigsten gegen die ersten schwarzen Nachbarn protestiert. Und wie sie ständig in der Furcht lebt, als das erkannt zu werden, was sie ist: schwarz.
Auch gut gefallen hat mir, wie Bennett die Charaktere der Töchter in Teilen fast spiegelbildlich zu denen ihrer Mütter entwirft. Desirees Tochter Jude hat mehr Ähnlichkeit mit Stella, während Stellas Tochter Kennedy viele Wesenszüge ihrer Tante aufweist. Doch Beide tragen ganz klar das Erbe ihrer Mütter in sich, während die Väter kaum eine Rolle spielen.

Wirklich lesenswert! show less

Charlotte Brontë wrote scathingly more than once about her near contemporary Jane Austen's novels. She dismissed Pride and Prejudice as an "accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully-fenced, highly cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers." In Emma, she claimed, Austen "ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound." Much as I don't agree with Brontë's views, I thought of her words more than once while reading Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half.

For a book which touches so many weighty, important issues—racism, colourism, identity and performance, passing, transness, segregation—this felt very safe, very benign. I think I was something like 280 pages in before I show more had a moment where I as a reader felt challenged by anything I read, but that was all contained within a paragraph or two and then never further engaged with. (In this case, the Black boyfriend of white(-presenting) Kennedy asks her to call him the N word during sex. The way my eyes widened.) Also, since we never really see inside Reese's head and his character goes under-developed, I'm not sure what Bennett was trying to do with the apparent paralleling of being trans and racial passing, but I was side-eyeing the implications.

And then, after the atmospheric opening chapters—where I could understand the twins' desire to leave stifling small-town 1950s Mallard, Louisiana, and to head for the big city—the characters just increasingly acted in unconvincing ways. There were things that characters did or didn't do that seemed to make sense only from the perspective of permitting some aspect of the plot, or to fit with the Capital T Themes that each character is supposed to represent.

It's all very neat: carefully-fenced, highly cultivated, nothing vehement. show less