User:Bmharden2/The Vanishing Half

Synopsis (adding on to this section).
The novel is a multi-generational family saga set from the 1940s to the 1990s and centering on identical twin sisters Desiree and Estelle "Stella" Vignes and their daughters Jude and Kennedy. Desiree and Stella are black and have exceptionally light skin. They are raised in the fictional town of Mallard, Louisiana where the residents are exclusively people with light skin. Desiree and Stella witness the lynching of their father in the 1940s and feel discontent living in Mallard where there are little opportunities for them. A formative moment for the twins is when their mother Adele pulls them out of school so they can earn money cleaning a family's home. Stella is sexually abused by the man who owns the home and conceals this from her family. At the age of 16, the twins decide to run away to New Orleans. Stella begins to pass for white so she can work as a secretary at a marketing firm called Maison Blanche. Her wealthy boss, Blake, falls for her, and she moves to California with him without telling Desiree. Desiree is left heartbroken and ends up in an abusive marriage.

Stella and Blake get married and live in an affluent, white neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. They have a daughter named Kennedy who dreams of becoming an actress. In order to maintain the facade she's built, Stella has to pretend to be white for the rest of her life. She lies to Blake and Kennedy by telling them that all of her family members are dead. Kennedy ends up dropping out of college to pursue a career in acting, and she has a troubled relationship with her mother who she knows is lying about her background.

Meanwhile, Desiree leaves an abusive marriage and moves away from Washington, D.C. to return to Mallard with her eight-year-old daughter Jude. Since Desiree's ex-husband has dark skin, Jude has dark skin as well. Growing up in Mallard is hard for Jude, as she is ridiculed for her dark complexion. Jude eventually moves to Los Angeles and attends the University of California, Los Angeles on a track scholarship. She falls in love with a transgender man named Reese while in college and eventually gets a job as a caterer to help him save for his transition surgery. While working part-time as a caterer in Beverly Hills, Jude sees a woman who appears to be her mother's doppelgänger. The woman is her aunt Stella whom she's never met.

Jude later meets Kennedy at a local theater since Kennedy is in the same play as Jude's friend Barry. Kennedy is disliked by most people at the theater because of her entitlement and lack of care for others. Jude figures out that Kennedy is Stella's daughter, and she eventually tells Kennedy the secret of her mother's identity. Jude also confronts Stella about her true identity when she comes to watch one of Kennedy's plays, causing Stella to flee.

At the novel's end, Jude is in medical school, and she ends up with Reese who is finally able to get his transition surgery. Kennedy's relatively unsuccessful career in acting comes to an end, and she becomes a real estate agent. Kennedy and Stella continue to have a rocky relationship, as Kennedy knows that her mother will never be truthful with her. Desiree ends up with a man named Early who is a private investigator and bondsman, and together, they take care of the twins' mom Adele who has dementia.

The novel has a nonlinear narrative structure.

Themes

Colorism (Just adding on to this section. Edits will be in bold).

Bennett explores the issue of colorism throughout the book. In the novel, an ex-slave named Alphonse Decuir established a town called Mallard for only light-skinned people. This leads to a fixation among the town about lightness coupled with a disgust for dark-skinned people. Jude, who is the daughter of the main character, is bullied for the darker color of her skin in school and is called names such as "Tar Baby" and "Blueskin." The townspeople also view Desiree's relationship with Early, who is a dark skinned man, as unfathomable because to them dark-skinned people were undesirable. Throughout Desiree and Stella's childhood, their mother Adele warns them against dark-skinned men. The book explores the effects of colorism and the lengths people go to in order to be accepted as beautiful or lighter.

Performance and Acting

Bennett's novel explores the many humans perform to control society’s view of them. Characters like Kennedy and Barry perform only temporarily on the stage. Kennedy performs in plays and movies, and Barry becomes a woman on the weekends. But other characters in the novel perform daily to control society’s view of them. Stella is the most obvious example of this constant performance. Though one would think passing would get easier over time, it continues to be a constant struggle for her to pretend to be someone she’s not. In order for her to maintain the life she’s built, she can never be fully honest with herself or others. Her performance goes so far for her that she ends up perpetuating even more racism than her white counterparts. Any time she sees a black person, she is reminded of the precarious nature of her performance. What if they recognize her from her past life or can somehow tell her true race?

Passing

Bennett's novel also explores the complexity of racial passing. In many novels, like Nella Larsen's Passing, passing is shown through a primarily negative lens. Bennett's novel explores passing through a character who does not regret her decision to pass and chooses it again at the end of the novel, despite what it's cost her. Bennett's novel conveys the many reasons why people chose to pass in a Jim Crow society. Many people simply wanted to escape the painful realities of racial degradation and prejudices. Stella's decision to pass costs her some peace of mind, but it also allows her to escape her hometown where she is stagnant and unable to pursue her dreams.