The Vanishing Half

May 23

The Vanishing Half by @britrbennett

Reviewed by Linda
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Wow. Wow. Wow. The book is incredible!⁣
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It's the 1950s and the Vignes twins, Desiree and Stella born to light-skinned parents, live in a tiny Black Louisiana community where most of its inhabitants pass as white. Barely visible on the map, the African Americans in Mallard associate their skin tone with presence and privilege but once the twins leave at 16 they're no longer bound by these small village ideals and are able to determine their racial identity as they please. ⁣
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The twins escape to New Orleans and their paths, which were once so closely intertwined, are torn down the middle to the point of almost no return. As one sister decides to run away from her Blackness, the other sister runs towards it for exactly the same reasons. The reader follows Desiree, as she raises her Black daughter Jude, whilst her twin Stella disappears one day to pass as white and raises her daughter Kennedy in the same way - denying her of her truth and heritage. The repercussions are generational and for decades the twin sisters live separately without any intersection until their daughters meet in the 90s. ⁣
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This is a powerful story and Bennett is unafraid to combat racism and colourism with the honesty and emotion it deserves. Each character is complex and profound. There's domestic abuse, family devastation, racial and social identity but it’s also way more than all of this, and Bennett conquers every single theme with mastery. ⁣

Fictionwomen writerswomens prize for fictionfeminist fictiondialogue booksbrit bennettthe vanishing halfwomen of colourwriters of colourLinda

Linda Malek

I've always had the urge to set up a forum and voice my thoughts after each read, but never had the confidence to do so alone. 18 months ago, I got my fellow book-loving friends involved and formed The Candid Book Club! Aside from having an exponentially growing to-read pile and deteriorating shortsightedness, we've been lucky to have been invited to publisher events and have attended several talks with our favourite authors (Thank you and long may they continue!) To take a break from the pressures of PhD Chemistry, Jess and I exchanged books all the time and in my youth, I was that kid with the first editions of Harry Potter having already read Gulliver’s travels and some Charles Dickens. At work, my desk is a library and luckily for me I sit next to another bookworm Jack who entertains all the photo-taking. I'm suffering from a chronic case of wanderlust (age-related crisis) so books which are set as far away from home as possible tend to float my boat: Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Asia...you name it. But if it's got anything to do with Egypt then I'm all over it. So you get the drift...I read all the time, everywhere (on the tube mostly), everyday, a book a week, and very quickly I'm onto the next! And then sometimes there is a book that stops me in my tracks, makes me want to swallow the pages whole, and have it next to me at all times, with some sentences staying with me forever: Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts, anything by Khaled Hosseini, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (absolute gem of a woman), A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shuklaand and anything by Naguib Mahfouz.

The Vanishing Half

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