People thought that being one of a kind made you special. No, it just made you lonely. What was special was belonging with someone else.
The Vanishing Half
by Brit Bennett
Genre: Historical Fiction
About: Desiree and Stella are known as The Twins in the small town they grew up in. Beautiful, identical twins with skin so light they could pass for white. But when they're forced to drop school and clean for a white family, the twins runaway together; Desiree with no plan, Stella with one that sees her leave even her twin behind as she decides to take control of her life and become white.
The Good
This is beautiful to read. The prose is dreamy and full of these small, little moments that stick with you. Some of them are totally innocuous things (like drinking gin hoping the maid thinks its water, or seeing, for the first time, a black Santa in an ice rink) but these moments are written so vividly that each glimpse pulls you further into their lives, weaving their past, present and future in such interesting ways. The novel spans decades, going backwards and forwards in time with bursts of memory framing the big and small moments. You experience their lives and feel the weight of the past seeping into the next generation. I felt connected to all of the characters, the dialogue and setting were fantastic at bringing me into their world and from beginning to end, I was invested in this story.
The Bad
I think the way time passed in this novel was very clever and impressive at giving a lot of depth to lives that we only read about for a little over 300 pages, and yet the nature of this shift was sometimes jarring. For example, Sam's character. In Desiree's POV we learn he's hit her a few times and this pushes her to leave with her daughter in the middle of the night. Later, she worries she may have over-reacted, but then in Jude's POV we learn it wasn't just a few times, he was violent for years and each subsequent time Desiree reflects on him, the violence is more visceral from how it was initially presented. This is brilliant perhaps at showing a realistic portrayal of a domestic abuse victim and how they come to terms with the abusive relationship over time, but it gives an impression of unreliability in the narration for the reader. At least I didn't get a sense of the abuse going on for as long as it had been when Desiree first returns home and there were other instances, besides Sam, where the timescale just wasn't clear for me. I think this is probably inevitable with a back and forth narration, especially when we jump back into an event that's mirroring a present one, as was also the case sometimes. Ultimately, it results in time becoming that little bit more blurry and that's a sense I had with quite a few scenes.
There was also a bit of a disappointing feeling to some of the jumps. Kennedy 'making it' on a soap opera and then jumping forward to her in her forties lamenting that this was her only success, gives a bitter feel when the narration jumps back and we watch her begin her acting career. There just isn't a lot of positive momentum to any of the character journey's, despite the fact that, on paper, many of them don't lead terrible lives. The overall feel, however, is one of melancholy and a longing to belong. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (the atmosphere of the novel was really well done and it will stick with me) but I would have appreciated a different note to end on: it could have been a more hopeful one or a darker one, but I did feel a change was needed.
The Somewhat Iffy
I feel as though there was a lot of foreshadowing for an event that never happens: Blake never discovers Stella's secret. While I'm not saying it needed to have a tragic event to end on, what we saw happen with the Walkers, or what we know happened to Leon Vignes and how both events deeply impacted Stella, were hints, I thought, at a darker end for Stella once her husband learned the truth about her. The fact that this never happens made this point a loose end for me.
Overall
Soulful and beautiful. The characters draw you in and don't let you go. A fascinating deep dive through past and present events that made me often homesick. This is a novel with family at its core and the deep sense of loss that is felt without it.
Comments