Book Review of “The Vanishing Half: A Novel”

Resident Chilton Knudsen’s review of The Vanishing Half: A Novel by Brit Bennett [New York: Riverhead, 2020] is scheduled for Tuesday, June 15, 2021 at 7 PM in the Auditorium.

This book, a second work of fiction by Brit Bennett, a young writer, carves out a unique and powerful standpoint in the consideration of racism. As I grew up, I was aware of the phenomenon of “passing” in the African American community. I also noticed bleaching creams and hair relaxers on the shelves of stores which served the black community. One of the consequences of white privilege is the message that people of color should look more like white people if they want to assume a good place in the social order. This novel works with these themes as it draws us into the complex issues of race, ethics, privilege, and family dynamics.  And it does so with a graceful literary style, respectful of speech patterns and woven with surprising developments in the plot line. The story is grounded with two literary anchors, elegantly crafted: a mythical hometown and a pair of twin girls.

“In Mallard, nobody married dark”. Mallard, a fictional town, is the hometown in which this story takes place. It is a town whose essential purpose was upholding the racial gradients, by which one would “never be accepted as white but refused to be treated like Negroes”. The town itself actually functions in the story like one of the characters in the novel. The norms and values of Mallard highlight the dark skin/light skin tension. To marry well was to marry “light”, and thereby contribute to the lightening of the populace as a whole, “like a cup of coffee steadily diluted with cream”.

The twin girls, Desiree and Stella, take divergent paths out of Mallard, vanishing mysteriously one August night. Stella “passes”, lives as a white woman, and marries a white man. Desiree married a very dark man, bearing a child as dark as the father, who turned out to be an abusive husband. Good fiction weaves subplots into the larger narrative. A strong story within-the-story  traces the journey of Desiree and her child to safety and eventual return to Mallard.

Stella’s life unfolds quite differently, of course. The author uses this contrast elegantly, shaping the story to pose a range of ethical questions about power, race, gender, and social status.

The reader is drawn in by the epic quality of the narrative and reads along assuming that this story is about race. Then, through a twist and turn of plot, the story enlarges beyond race and adds layers of social and moral complexity. I will not spoil the story by saying more than this.

This is one of the several books I have read in a lifetime of loving fiction, which I did not want to end. And perhaps that too is the point. These issues are not settled.  We have so much more truth to tell; ever so much more justice work to do. God help us.

Chilton R Knudsen

Janet Neer and Ellyn Loy, Book Review Coordinators