Who's who in the novel "The The Vanishing Half""

 

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March Meeting , The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.

The Vanishing Half

Source: https://britbennett.com/the-vanishing-half

"The Vanishing Half" is a novel by American author Brit Bennett that tells the story of twin sisters, Desiree and Stella, who grow up in a small, predominantly Black community in Louisiana. As teenagers, they run away from home together but end up taking different paths in life. Desiree returns to their hometown with her young daughter, while Stella begins a new life passing as a white woman.

The novel explores themes of identity, race, and family, as well as the social and historical context that shapes the lives of the characters. Bennett uses the sisters' contrasting experiences to examine the ways in which race and class intersect and how these factors can determine one's opportunities and social mobility.

Ultimately, the novel is a meditation on the choices we make and the consequences of those choices, as well as the ways in which our past and present intersect to shape our identities. "The Vanishing Half" delivers a powerful message about the complexities of race and identity in America and the enduring legacy of racism and discrimination.

Brit Bennett

Brit Bennett is a young American author who was born in 1990 in Southern California. She graduated from Stanford University and went on to earn her MFA in Fiction at the University of Michigan. Bennett's writing career began to take off in 2014 when she won the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers for her short story "A Different Kind of Hard."

Bennett's debut novel, "The Mothers," was published in 2016 and was a New York Times bestseller. The novel explores themes of friendship, love, and loss in the lives of three Black teenagers in a conservative Southern California community. The novel received critical acclaim for its poignant and nuanced exploration of complex characters and its unflinching depiction of the challenges faced by Black women.

In 2020, Bennett published her second novel, "The Vanishing Half," which was another New York Times bestseller and became a cultural phenomenon. The novel tells the story of twin sisters who run away from their small Black community in the 1950s and take divergent paths in life, one living as a Black woman and the other passing as white. "The Vanishing Half" explores themes of identity, race, and family in a masterful and evocative way, and has received numerous awards and accolades, including being longlisted for the National Book Award.

Bennett's writing is known for its emotional depth and incisive social commentary, and her work has been celebrated for its ability to capture the complexity of the Black American experience in a way that is both accessible and deeply meaningful.