Author(s): Brit Bennett

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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.

"I had been intrigued to read this book for sometime. Recently I heard that at one point in time, on the New York underground, it was the only book every passenger seemed to be reading. The Vanishing Half is Brit Bennetts' second novel and has been snaffled for a TV adaptation. I can see why, this book is well written, at times poetic and enjoyable.
Meet Desiree and Stella identical twins growing up in small town Mallard, Louisiana, in the 1950s. They live in a community of 'light skinned blacks' people who are sandwiched between the divides of race. Growing up the twins are praised for their fair skin, yet Desiree doesn’t always feel comfortable about this praise. As children they witness their father being lynched, brutal, horrifying and yet something the girls and the town try to forget. Raised by a hard working mother who amongst jobs is a cleaner, the twins at 16 decide their only option for a different future is to leave Mallard and head for New Orleans. The girls are similar in all the ways identical twins usually are, but as they reach adult hood their differing ideas begin to split them apart. And so begins a multi generational tale of one family and their experience with race and gender identity in America.
Ultimately this story is meditation on how we form our identity and that pretending to be someone you think you 'should' be can be damaging and just plain exhausting. A great read for fans of Girl, Woman, Other. Gaby"