Description
The Vanishing Half is a historical fiction novel by Brit Bennett, following identical twin sisters whose lives take radically different paths after they escape their small Southern Black community as teenagers. One sister returns to her hometown and raises her Black daughter there, while the other secretly passes as white and builds a new life with a white husband who knows nothing about her past. Although separated by distance and circumstance, the sisters remain connected, and their daughters eventually bring the two families back into each other’s lives.
Spanning several decades from the 1950s to the 1990s and moving between the American South and California, the novel explores race, colourism, gender, identity and the ways family histories shape the lives of subsequent generations. Through the intertwined stories of two sisters and their daughters, Bennett examines the personal costs of passing and the complex relationship between who we are, where we come from and who we choose to become. The novel won the 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Historical Fiction and was a New York Times bestseller.
A powerful choice for readers who enjoy historical fiction, multi-generational family stories and thought-provoking novels about race, identity and belonging.
