The Vanishing Half: Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize 2021
£4.70
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP BESTSELLER
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE
‘An utterly mesmerising novel..I absolutely loved this book’ Bernardine Evaristo, winner of the Booker Prize 2019
‘Epic’ Kiley Reid, O, The Oprah Magazine
‘Favourite book [of the] year’ Issa Rae
The perfect gift for fans of Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston and Nella Larson.
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. Ten 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’ story lines 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.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Dialogue Books (2 Jun. 2020) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 1643 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 401 pages |
by EmmaG
An interesting providing an insight to the oppression of coloured people in years gone by.
A strong 4.5 from me. Whilst the story is fiction, you know the heart of all the racism rings true.
It’s utterly abhorrent what people of colour went through and made me feel sick in my stomach over the segregation in communities. Just why ????.
The world has come a long way over the past 60-70/100 years, but still has so far to go.
If only these issues were a work of fiction and not actually true.
by Anika May
The Vignes twins may look alike but they couldn’t be more different. This is made clearer by the decision made by Stella who leaves her sister (after they ran from their small town) so that she can pass as a white woman. I say she made the decision for both of them because she does not ask her sister if she would like to do this with her nor does she tell her sister of her plan. She simply disappears.
What I find interesting is the fact that their community actually thought Stella was the better twin because she was less outspoken but what I saw even when they were younger was a woman who was never afraid to be herself or speak her mind because she had nothing to hide whereas the other was hiding a plethora of secrets.
This book was very sad. I felt so bad for Desiree, she went through so much pain and so much loss, but I love how she was always so strong and how she’d put her sister, her daughter, her mother, and others first. I found it really difficult to like Stella, her actions reeked of selfishness and this is not just because she abandoned her family but also in the way she treated her daughter and her husband and the heart-breaking way she treated her black neighbour. This was so devastating to read, and I have no words to describe how it made me feel. In a way I guess it shows how deeply afraid she was; she was so afraid of anything that resembles what she knows herself to be because she didn’t want to get caught and her only defence became hate.
Although I liked this book, I have to admit I did get a bit bored in some places. The constant shifting between characters and time was a bit distracting and I feel like while the books touched on many important issues, some were not explored properly. For instance, the book mentions the LGBTQ community and we are introduced to Reese and his friends, but their character was not fully explored. Reese must have had a lot of difficulty and battles that he faced but they were just brushed. This left me a bit frustrated because I found myself wanting to know more about these characters but ended up with very little, so I was adding up the rest of the story with my own imagination.
Overall, I am glad I read this book, it is not a fast or easy read and you have to be in the mood for something deep, her writing reminds me of Toni Morrison, not just because of the beautiful style but also because of the depth and her bold take on important topics.
by Anika May
The beginning of the book introduces Mallard, a small town just 2 hours outside New Orleans. But it’s a very unique town. The community, although black, prides themselves on having light skin. They are too dark to be white, but to light to be black. Mallard was built to be the place in-between. And each generation gets lighter. One day, the twins decide to run away from this claustrophobic town. Split into six parts, the story begins in 1968 when one twin returns and captivatingly navigates through the years.
From the introduction of the town and the characters, Brit Bennett establishes the turmoil that comes with a conflicted sense of identity. In the book, dark skin is undesirable, even detestable. And there’s a very similar narrative in the world we live in today. It’s an intergenerational issue that continues to poison humanity. Growing up in an environment that worships light skin has damaging effects on those who don’t fit the mould. I love the questions this book forces the reader to ask, as it evaluates what really makes a person’s identity.
That concept is perfectly presented in the judgements and insecurities of the characters. It’s evident in Desiree and Stella, who make their choices based on the traumatic events of their childhood as well as society’s polluted view of dark skin. Desiree, the rebellious and outspoken twin, marries a dark-skinned man and continues to identify as a black woman. Whereas Stella, who is fascinated with the advantages that comes with lighter skin, marries a white man, and choses to live a lie by pretending to be white. But their choices have far-reaching effects on their children.
Kennedy, Stella’s daughter, grows up in a world of privilege with blonde hair and violet eyes. While Jude, Desiree’s daughter, is alienated in a racist society with skin darker than many have ever seen. Their lives run on completely different tracks, yet Bennett weaves them together so exquisitely. As a result, the novel grows more and more compelling with each chapter.
Each character in this novel is constructed in such a mesmerising way. As the plot constantly moves forward, the characters move effortlessly with it. They’re three-dimensional, with flaws and mistakes that make it easy to attach to them. As a reader, you get to know the protagonists from childhood and observe their growth throughout the years. With an immovable foundation set, the lives of the women are woven together in a mosaic of events. In my opinion, the journey and the back-and-forth is the most enjoyable part of the reading experience. This book is simply a spectacular story that has been beautifully told.
A new layer is added to every chapter of the book with a tantalisingly slow suspense. Whether it’s another secret Stella has buried, or another challenge Desiree has pushed out of her way. That pattern is also echoed in Kennedy and Jude as they try to navigate adulthood. Like their mothers, they too question their history and identity, albeit in very different ways.
The perspectives from different characters really helps the progress of the narrative throwing away the entertainment. The novel could easily rely on dialogue to maintain a flow, but it’s the hopes, thoughts, and anxieties of the characters that holds the action and excitement. It doesn’t drag for a single moment. And with Bennett’s additive voice, it’s a really hard book to put down.
In reality, the summary of this book doesn’t provide even a quarter of the complex journey within its pages. It explores powerful themes such as race, class, freedom and family. And with an undeniable depth, The Vanishing Half is both thought-provoking, inspiring and heart-breaking. I’m not sure whether the title refers to losing a twin, or losing yourself. The characters seem to experience both. Either way, it’s a truly enchanting and insightful read that all should experience.
Anika | chaptersofmay.com
by Hopefulromantik
I didn’t expect to be immersed in this as much as I was. It was easy to read and to understand the motivations behind the characters as we unpick all their faults and worries. The book jumps forward in big chunks of time and changes character perspectives at the same rate, which normally makes a book really disjointed for me, but with this book, I fell back into each chapter and character. My one small frustration was the chapter lengths. They were all quite long, which made the book daunting to pick up at times. I liked that there wasn’t some neat resolution, and the story felt truly reflective of the complexities of real life.