The Vanishing Half

 by Brit Bennet

Who are we ? Who do we want to be ?

This can sum up the subject of the book which is about racial and gender determination, segregation, education, life opportunities.

It is a multigenerational novel, set in a southern state of the USA in a town lived in only by coloured people, « in a town where people are hidden among themselves ».

Two twins, Désirée and Stella, aged 16, suddenly disappear together from their hometown.

We learn afterwards that they drifted apart, each going their own way and eventually lost contact with one another.

Désirée got married to a black man , left him at some point and came back to her mother with her black daughter Jude. Life will be tough for her.

Stella married a white man. Their daughter Kennedy is white with blond hair.Their life will be a privileged one.

Stella has decided to obliterate her past and her origins. She has built her life on secrets and lies.

Kennedy, the spoilt child, will squander away her life while Jude, the one with few opportunities, will find her place in the world and climb up the social ladder.

Are Désirée and Stella going to reconnect later in life? 

What happens with Jude and Kennedy?

We found the book gripping and thought provoking with insights into the social and cultural history of PASSING.

We did appreciate the way the writer always dealt with delicate issues with a lot of restraint.

                                                                                                      Anne Van Calster, July 202

Christa found in a review some interesting sentences.

The Vanishing Half is a brave foray into a vast and difficult terrain.

It is about racial identity and the tension between personal freedom and responsibility to a community.

The novel raises thorny questions about the cost of blackness. The answers are complicated. Desiree and her daughter emerge intact. Desiree has a sense of belongiCng to a place and people, and a fully developed identity.

Stella fares better by every possible socio-economic measure but she and Kennedy, her daughter, are shipwrecked, bobbing in open water, even if their life rafts are bejewelled. It would seem that it is not quite possible to stop being black in America no matter how hard you try....

This ""passing"" conflict  was completely new to me and I hope it makes for a interesting discussion.