(Image courtesy of Wikipedia. “‘The Vanishing Half’ gives an enlightening account of colorism.”)
Rick Dalton
Connector Editor
Brit Bennett’s 2020 historical fiction novel “The Vanishing Half” follows the lives of African American twin sisters Desiree and Stella Vignes, but they spend most of the novel apart. The twins are from a unique town called Mallard, Louisiana, that is exclusively black but consists only of light-skinned individuals. Desiree and Stella can easily pass for white but learn early on that their light skin will not save them from racial violence; as children, the pair are witnesses to their father’s lynching due to false allegations of harassing a white woman. At 16 years old in 1954, Desiree and Stella flee to New Orleans together to try and start a new life away from the only home they have ever known. A year later and out of nowhere, Stella leaves Desiree a note stating, “Sorry, honey, but I’ve got to go my own way” before she disappears without a trace. From there, the novel splits into an ensemble piece that follows the sisters and their children as they decide what kind of lives they want to lead and who they want to love.
Almost as a form of protest, Desiree ends up married to a very dark-skinned man and has a very dark-skinned daughter named Jude. Her husband is violent, (“Nobody had warned her of this as a girl, when they carried on over her beautiful light complexion. How easily her skin would wear the mark of an angry man”), so Desiree moves back home to Mallard, where the townsfolk regard her as an oddity for marrying and having a child with a dark-skinned man. Matters are further complicated when she begins seeing Early, a bounty hunter that spends most of his life on the road tracking people down. Early offers to find Stella, as Desiree would love to know what happened to her sister.
The narrative bounces between perspectives and features characters that grapple with their identity. Desiree struggles to adapt to life in a hometown that does not feel like it wants her. Early worries that he isn’t treating her right by not offering a more conventional relationship. Later, Jude deals with colorism as the only dark-skinned person in an all-black town before going to study at UCLA. In Los Angeles, she meets Reese, a man with a secret past of his own. Additionally, it turns out Stella is living a life that is very different from Desiree, with a family of her own, but hers is a sad life: “People thought that being one of a kind made you special. No, it just made you lonely.” Finally, there is Kennedy, Stella’s daughter that knows nothing of her mother’s past, but knows there must be more to her mother than meets the eye. Watching these characters grow and learn about life through a multigenerational, several decade long saga is thoroughly engrossing.
The themes of “The Vanishing Half” are incredibly powerful, and Bennett delivers them with blunt, precise, shockingly honest prose throughout the novel. She touches on the absurdity of colorism in a community that knows the outside world still sees them all the same. There are intimate relationships of all kinds, and what is conventional is certainly not always what makes everyone happy. Identity is of course at the forefront of all these issues, as each character struggles to decide how much to let the outside world dictate how they see themselves. The novel highlights the sad truth that how the outside world sees an individual can have a devastating effect on their psyche. However, it is heartwarming to see that the characters that feel the most at peace in their lives are the ones that can be the most honest with themselves.
“The Vanishing Half” is a must read for any fan of historical fiction. It twists and turns in so many imaginative ways, it is deeply thought provoking, it reminds us all that everyone has their own unique journey down the path to self-discovery.
Grade: A
