The Vanishing Half

"This book really blew both of us away. The central theme is around Black Americans who are ‘White passing’ or ‘White presenting’ but it says so much about White privilege. The novel is about two Black American sisters called Desiree and Stella Vignes. They escape life in a small Louisiana town and initially they live together. But it all changes after Stella gets a secretarial job at an upmarket department store. She is accepted as a White person even though she is Black, and she becomes fully wrapped up in her new identity. Between leaving their small apartment and entering the office, Stella transforms into another person — Miss Vignes, who Desiree calls “White Stella.” Stella increasingly identifies as a White woman, becomes estranged from her sister, and marries a White man. Her husband Blake assumes his wife is White because Stella lies to him, saying she was an only child who’d moved to New Orleans after her parents died in an accident. Stella is in an interracial marriage, but she is caught in the struggle of living a lie as she constructs her new life and racial identity. But Stella is forced to confront her perceived identity when she finds out a Black family – Reg and Loretta Walker – will be moving across their street. Stella is worried they will expose her as a Black woman which might ruin her marriage and her new life. While Stella builds a relationship with Loretta, she keeps a wall up to conceal her true identity. But there is a fascinating struggle for authenticity within this section, which shows how challenging it was for Black women to fight racial segregation without jeopardising their lives and position within society. It is also remarkable storytelling. Both Desiree and Stella give birth to daughters who are about the same age. Kennedy is Stella’s daughter and Jude is Desiree’s daughter and they are not introduced to each other as cousins but the truth comes out. Kennedy is fair skinned and identifies as White – and initially does not not know her mom is Black, whereas Jude is described as “blueblack” and they have very different lives, racial experiences and expectations but also something strangely in common. We found the narrative so relevant to our lives as an interracial couple, but it’s also a compelling and very moving story with a significant aspect centered around a woman attempting to hide her Blackness and living a life that would normally exempt her from the complexities of an interracial marriage, only to still be affronted with it both internally and, eventually, by her child."

"This 2020 best-seller adds a political twist to the Pascalian-Steinbeckian use of twins to explore divergent life paths. After the light-skinned Black twins Desiree and Stella Vignes part ways at age sixteen, Desiree returns to their childhood home in rural Louisiana while Stella heads off for an affluent lifestyle in Los Angeles, where she passes as white. The truth comes out at a Beverly Hills dinner party when Desiree’s daughter, on a track scholarship to UCLA and working as a caterer, runs into her wealthy aunt, the spitting image of her mother. (“Can I interest you in some shrimp cocktail…Mom?!”) The novel’s conceit—how different could your life be if you changed just one significant fact about yourself?—is a question twins often inspire in fiction. An author can treat twinhood as purely an intellectual experiment or, as in this morally compelling novel, use it to make a political point. What kind of country would allow a person’s racial identity to have such a consequential impact on how their life goes? Oh yeah, ours."