The Vanishing Half

Sunday Times bestseller & bookstagram sensation, The Vanishing Half really is a fantastic novel. It sucks you in and before you know it you’ve been glued to the pages for six hours and you’re almost through the story. Following the lives of twin girls born in a town full of ‘coloured folk’, who got lighter and lighter in complexion with each generation until eventually the twins (born in the fifties) could pass for white. Skipping between the late sixties and the eighties, this novel deep dives into racism, generational trauma, transgender narratives and mother-daughter relationships. It’s a love letter to the marginalised, to those who create community out of necessity on the fringes and build full and beautiful lives there. It’s also a story of white privilege and gender/racial identity politics, contextually brought to life in vivid colour by Los Angles, drag clubs in downtown Hollywood, backwater Mallard and bustling New Orleans.

“She’d always been a great liar. The only difference between lying and acting was whether your audience was in on it, but it was all a performance just the same.”

This is Brit Bennett’s second novel, and what an achievement it is. The writing is gripping, with each character fully fleshed out - their flaws, vulnerabilities and courage so clearly defined by cause and effect that the whole story is realistic and flows seamlessly from year to year. It’s a beautiful tale of what-ifs, with one twin embracing her blackness and the other ‘passing over’ to have a white child. The daughters of the twins add yet more knots in the complex family ties, cousins who could not be more different; each a reflection of what life is like if you’re raised to live wholeheartedly in your truth - or not.

I haven’t read a bad review of this book yet, and I expect it to line the best-sellers shelves for a long time. I’d highly recommend it as a fictional read to loose yourself in.

CW: Racism, Domestic Abuse, Drug Use, Violence