Book Review Vanishing Half

It is without a doubt one of my favorite books.

Book review vanishing half. Bennett is deeply engaged in the unknowability of other people and the scourge of colorism. You can escape a town but you cannot escape blood. Book of the day fiction the vanishing half by brit bennett review a twin s struggle to pass for white the author of the mothers brings fresh sensitivity to the subject of african americans.

A reader can guess what is coming. In the vanishing half bennett takes up a subject perfectly suited to her signature melodramatic style. The scene in which stella adopts her white persona is a tour de force of doubling and confusion.

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 m talking about racial passing which has inspired mostly tragic novels like nella. Edt brit bennett s new novel the vanishing half is about people who disappear in search of another life a better place.

The vanishing half brit bennett s second novel is powerful and incredibly relevant given the moment our society is in right now. The vanishing half by brit bennett considers fraught questions of racial identity personal freedom and community in a story that stretches from the jim crow south to 1980s los angeles. The vanishing half by brit bennett review two faces of the black experience.

All this is expertly paced unfurling before the book is half finished. A light skinned twin sister constructs a new identity as a white woman in a clever novel that confounds expectations. It s an even better book more expansive yet also deeper a multi generational family saga that tackles.

Brit bennett author bio. Somehow the vignes twins believed themselves capable of both. June 1 2020 at 5 11 p m.