May 13, 2022
The Vanishing Half
by Britt Bennett
Trigger Warning: Contains depictions of racism, sexism, transphobia, rape, spousal abuse, and other related themes that may be disturbing to readers.Even the grandest stories are based on the realest of secrets hidden deep inside us all—fears of abandonment, regrets for what we did selfishly, confidence in our own lies, and incidents where we pretend to be someone else in order to pass as another race and marry into a nice neighborhood where we shun our own people to fit in. Well, maybe that last part only exists in Brit Bennett’s tragic multi-generational novel, The Vanishing Half. But does a fictional tale make the depths through which struggling people will go to overcome hardships any less real?Bennett’s story unfolds around identical twins Desiree and Stella, who were born in a racist town of light-skinned Black residents, all who shun the idea of being dark-skinned but never rise to the social status of Whites. After running away to New Orleans as teenagers in the 1950s, Stella then vanishes under the guise of being a White woman, leaving Desiree to marry a man who becomes very abusive. Later, we find that Desiree has returned home, where her college-aged daughter takes the narrative over and leaves town to pursue an education, only to run into Stella’s rude and spoiled daughter. While uncovering the disappearance of her aunt, she works hard to afford college and help her newfound love interest afford a sex change, at the same time as lying to her mother that she’ll ever return to the racist, do-nothing town she left behind.The Vanishing Half covers a range of themes with a great deal of emotional depth and without judging any situation found in the story in an era when bias is still very much alive all around us. It gives us perspective to lives we haven’t lived, validation to some who have faced these hardships and overcome. Bennett’s book has you crying one moment, cuddling your pillow the next in this tragic but very worth it read.