The Vanishing Half

By Brit Bennett, Riverhead Books, 2020,, 343 pages
Reviewed by Janet Cleaveland, March 6, 2021

In “The Vanishing Half,” nothing changes but everything changes.

Brit Bennett’s second novel examines bigotry, lies and the crush of holding secrets. The novel made me cringe at times but also celebrate truth and courage at others.

In “Vanishing,” Desiree Vignes returns to her hometown, a fictional Louisiana community that’s so small it isn’t on maps. Mallard was founded by a mixed-race, light-skinned Black man. His descendants, including the Vignes twins, have “creamy skin, hazel eyes and wavy hair.” Desiree has in tow her young daughter, whose skin color is “blueblack,” inherited from her father. They are fleeing Washington, D.C., and abuse that Desiree no longer can stomach.

They are returning to a town in which “nobody marries dark.”

This is author Bennett’s second novel. Her first, “The Mothers,” also explores secrets and betrayal, with the mothers acting as a Greek chorus. They are gossips under the guise of praying for members of the church, and the plot centers on abortion’s emotional consequences.

In “Vanishing,” Desiree musters her dignity and runs a diner as she cares for her mamma and raises Jude, a smart, bookish and athletic girl who earns a track scholarship to the University of California-Los Angeles.

Contrast this with Desiree’s identical twin, Stella. Forced to drop out of school, the twins at age 16 leave Mallard and the menial work of cleaning houses for rich white people in neighboring towns. They flee to New Orleans, working hard and going nowhere. One day Stella disappears.

Desiree thinks of herself as a Black woman; however, once Stella passes as white to get into a museum on a day reserved for “Whites Only,” she begins to think of herself as “able to pass as white.”

Some years later, Stella is living in Brentwood, the wife of a white business executive she met while working as his assistant. They are the parents of Kennedy, a spoiled, not particularly talented young woman who wants to become an actor.

In one of the more painful scenes, Stella addresses a neighborhood association about keeping a Black family from buying a house in the wealthy district. Nevertheless, the family moves in, and an overwrought Stella blurts out the N-word as she snatches Kennedy away from play with the neighbor girl.

It’s hard to like Stella.

The cousins’ lives eventually intersect under far-fetched circumstances. Jude is helping a caterer at a Hollywood party, all part of her drive to make it through UCLA and save for medical school. Her Aunt Stella walks into the party. Jude recognizes the familiar curve of her face and promptly drops a bottle of wine. She is fired on the spot.

What follows amounts to obsession, stalking, guts and determination to expose the disconnect between the mothers and explore the tentative interactions of the cousins — and the truth.

I had to force myself to get past the unlikelihood of Jude running into her aunt at a party and later stalking her cousin at plays. Los Angeles had 3 million residents, according to the 1970 census; Los Angeles County had 7 million people. The reader has to get past these numbers to consider the novel’s larger, on-point issue: how someone lives a lie, covering up her background for a generation and deflecting basic questions about her family and past.

I also had to get past this: Jude’s boyfriend is transitioning from woman to man. I thought the narrative would have been fine without intimate scenes, including hints of medical procedures.

Maybe this relationship is just one more example of author Bennett’s attempt to show contradictions that change lives forever or the results of two people co-existing in one body.

But Bennett ultimately gives readers a picture of dignity and purpose. Mother and daughter Desiree and Jude get on with their lives, one working hard while missing, worrying and wondering about the sister who abandoned her, and the other becoming a doctor and making peace with her world.

It’s not such a noble ending for Stella and Kennedy. Stella has lied so often that she is doomed to lose her daughter’s love and respect. Kennedy, in fact, calls her out. Nothing really changes, though eventually Stella tells her the whole truth, extracting a promise that Kennedy not reveal the secrets to her father. Mercifully, the book ended before that mess could be sorted.

I was also relieved when Stella returned to Mallard upon her mother’s death. There were glimpses of the deep connection she shared with her rock-solid twin, but only glimpses. She sneaked away in the night, unable to say goodbye to her sister face-to-face.

“Vanishing Half” is unsettling. The characters deal with contrasts inside and outside of themselves. Sometimes the novel was just too overwrought. At times, I was tempted to say, “Enough. This is too much to be believable. This is too painful. Life doesn’t really work this way.”

Other times, though, I was swept into the private hell that characters had created by their choices and the consequences. And that’s why I finished the book. Sometimes life works that way — choices, consequences and a dark place to call home.