“Racial passing occurs when a person classified as a member of a racial group is accepted or perceived (“passes”) as a member of another. This was the first time I was learning of the term “passing”. Brit Bennett did a wonderful job telling a story about a family torn apart and the issue of race/colourism – how different one’s life could change if they passed as white. Complexity is captured in literary beauty. The Vanishing Half has unforgettable and complex characters. The story is told from the point of view of the different characters, and I enjoyed that. It touches on different topics such as colourism, racial dynamics, motherhood, self-esteem, and domestic violence. One of them realizes that she could pass a white person and does that, leaving the other twin behind.

The story is about twin sisters who leave home to start a new life. The Vanishing Half was an interesting read. I finally got to read it during my flight to Vancouver and I loved it. So, I decided to buy the hard copy and boy, am I glad I did. I do not know why, but for some unknown reason, I could not get past the first chapter. I first got the e-book back in April and I started reading it but for some reason, I could not get into the first chapter. 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.

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. What will happen to the next generation when their own daughters’ storylines intersect? Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. The other passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past.

Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. The Vignes’s twin sisters will always be identical.

The vanishing half book cover