The Vanishing Half

Starred review from March 2, 2020
Bennett (The Mothers) explores a Louisiana family’s navigation of race, from the Jim Crow era through the 1980s, in this impressive work. The Vignes twins, Desiree and Stella, were born and raised in Mallard, La., the slave-born founder of which imagined a town with “each generation lighter than the one before.” In the early 1940s, when the twins are little, they witness their father’s lynching, and as they come of age, they harbor ambitions to get out. Desiree, the more headstrong sister, leads Stella to New Orleans when they are 16, and after a few months, the quiet, studious Stella, who once dreamt of enrolling in an HBCU, disappears one night. In 1968, 14 years later, still with no word from Stella, Desiree is back in Mallard with her eight-year-old daughter, Jude, having left her abusive ex-husband. When Jude is older, she makes her own escape from Mallard to attend college in Los Angeles. At a party, Jude glimpses a woman who looks exactly like Desiree—except she couldn’t be, because this woman is white. Eventually, the Vignes twins reunite, reckoning with the decisions that have shaped their lives. Effortlessly switching between the voices of Desiree, Stella, and their daughters, Bennett renders her characters and their struggles with great compassion, and explores the complicated state of mind that Stella finds herself in while passing as white. This prodigious follow-up surpasses Bennett’s formidable debut.

Narrator Shayna Small's affecting performance brings listeners into the complex world of African-American identical twins. As teens in the postwar years in Louisiana, they run away from home, choosing two very different paths. Stella, taking advantage of a white businessman's attentions, opts to pass as white, erasing all connections to her birth family. Desiree, however, marries the Blackest man she can, eventually returning home to live with her mother. Small's soft voice and measured delivery allow listeners the space to absorb the many consequences of the twins' choices, including Stella's constant fear of discovery, Desiree's burdens of responsibility, and their trickle-down effects on their own daughters. This audiobook about the search for self-identity as underscored by race, socioeconomics, and family will prompt timely conversation. C.B.L. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine