Bennett is an excellent storyteller, though some of her secondary characters – a white academic blind to how white and middle class her version of feminism is – are overshadowed by the plot and can feel like plants. It is her second novel and was published by Riverhead Books in 2020. The Vanishing Half is a novel that shows just how human emotion, uncertainty and longing can be captured and put on paper * Candice Carty-Williams * The Vanishing Half does exactly what a great novel is meant to do. The Vanishing Half is a novel that shows just how human emotion, uncertainty and longing can be captured and put on paper ― Candice Carty-Williams The Vanishing Half does exactly what a great novel is meant to do. 'The Vanishing Half is an utterly mesmerising novel. The Vanishing Half garnered acclaim from book critics, and was found by Emily Temple of Literary … There’s something deeply familiar but weightless about her settings. January 7, 2019 | Full Review… David Edelstein. For this mixed-race reader, each page of Stella’s fakery, each page of her pretending to be white even in the face of so much racism, felt like a punch to the gut. We know these spaces not from life but from literature. Ultimately, it’s a quietly damning account of acquiescing to an imitation of life and the delusion of the American dream. Twins Stella and Desiree grow up in a small black community in the southern US, until they run away at 16. The Vanishing Half may seem old-fashioned but it’s cleverly constructed to both match and critique the conservativism of the 1950s and 60s: the attenuated tone chimes with the restrained language and style of the period. One, Desiree, eventually returns and finds her life hemmed in by discrimination and circumstance. The Vanishing Half waseasilya five-star book for me. The Vanishing Half – Book Review. The source material for HBO's new limited series is Bennett's epic 2020 novel. These novels will take the reader from a rural Britain left behind to the underbelly of a community in Barbados; from inside the hectic performance of social media to inside a family beset by addiction and oppression; from a tale of racial hierarchy in America to a mind-expanding tale of altered perceptions. Congratulations to Brit Bennett on that #1 NY Times Bestsellers spot You've Got a Friend in Me:On Instagram: https://instagram/Storyscape Worldwide delivery available. Add to Wish List. every book you buy helps support independent journalism, find reviews, recommendations and special offers on the books we think you’ll love, get the best prices on the books we publish, SIGN UP FOR NEW ARRIVALS AND INSIDER-ONLY DISCOUNTS. Stella, ensconced in White society, is shedding her fur coat. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. Ultimately, it’s a quietly damning account of acquiescing to an imitation of life and the delusion of the American dream. Review the reviews: The Vanishing Act Of Esme Lennox. From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Mothers, a powerful new novel about the parallel lives of estranged twin sisters who choose to live in two very different worlds - one black and one white. Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller and chair of the British Book Awards judges, said: “From Shuggie Bain to The Thursday Murder Club, from All the Lonely People to The Danger Gang, from Hamnet to Black and British, these were the books that answered the call during this period of turmoil, debate and hope.”, Chair of judges and novelist Bernardine Evaristo, said: ‘…with this shortlist, we are excited to present a gloriously varied and thematically rich exploration of women’s fiction at its finest. ...", " Fitzek’s brainy thriller is always at risk of becoming impossible to take seriously...", "Bradby’s blend of le Carré espionage yarn with Michael Dobbs political thriller is a nifty and appealing concoction...", "The past haunts a woman’s return to the Colombian city in this engrossing tale...", "Lahiri has spun a delicately layered story of a woman reflecting on her past, present and future...", "this is the slickest, smartest and most enjoyable novel I’ve read in years...", "Shipstead, who has previously written sharp, elegant novels about dinner parties and ballet, turns phrases and observes people beautifully....", "A gripping stand-alone thriller from a well-known Nordic-noir writer....", "A celebration of the art of trompe-l’œil confirms this French prize winner as one of our most gifted stylists...", "a big, complex and utterly involving portrait of 19th-century China...", "a detailed and convincing portrait of an extraordinary life...", "beautifully written and filled with character and life...", "This long-awaited epic makes superhuman strength an unsettling backdrop to family drama...", "Vivid, wise and unflinching, this is a triumph....", "a manifesto for those who refuse to join the sinister dance of tech-platformed positivity and its imperative to keep up, to compete, to always succeed...", "Second Place glints with many of Cusk’s typically frosty pleasures...", "A wildly colourful Victorian adventurer is rescued from history’s cutting-room floor...", "Thomas’s new novel displays the same high energy as his debut, Firewatching....", "This characteristically clever novel challenges assumptions and has a sophisticated take on sexual politics....", "This brilliant rediscovered thriller is up there with the best Second World War novels...", "the emphasis here is on atmospherics...", "This is a book saturated with the sensations of southeast Asia...", "This is a funny and bold novel about two very different Jewish men and traditions...", " will leave you shaken but secretly rather thrilled...", "[The novellas] enter the subconscious as deeply as Bolaño’s larger works...", "It’s a taut tale of secrets that won’t die...", "made me laugh out loud in recognition...". The Guardian Bookshop is the online bookshop for The Guardian and The Observer. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett review, two faces of the black experience + A light-skinned twin sister constructs a new identity as a white woman in a clever novel that confounds expectations, Colin Grant for the Guardian. The Guardian view Columnists Letters Opinion videos Cartoons Sport Soccer NFL Tennis MLB MLS NBA NHL Culture Film Books Music Art & design TV … Brit Bennett’s new novel, “ The Vanishing Half,” is about people who disappear, in search of another life, a better place. Can you truly leave behind the identity you’re born with? It seduces with its literary flair, surprises with its breath-taking plot twists, delights with its psychological insights, and challenges us to consider the corrupting consequences of racism on different communities and individual lives. While the first 50 pages were a bit slow as the reader tries to figure out the lay of the land, thereafter, you simply can’t stop thinking about this book and waiting to dive back into it at every chance you get. The Guardian - Back to home. Daily Mail - Eithne Farry. (Emma Trim) Moments such as this are all the more disturbing for how quotidian they are to Bennett’s characters. Fascinating, and beautifully written. by Brit Bennett. Tending bar as a side job in Beverly Hills, she catches a glimpse of her mother’s doppelgänger. It seduces with its literary flair, surprises with its breath-taking plot twists, delights with its psychological insights, and challenges us to consider the corrupting consequences of racism on different communities and individual lives… All positive reviews › Daniel S. 5.0 out of 5 stars The Road Not Taken. Bennett is at her most compelling when she describes the emotionally fraught bond between women, a subject she previously explored in her debut, The Mothers. along with news, insight and charts from the BIM database. Dialogue's super lead for 2020. But the novel is driven by the intelligence and agility of her writing, which is tender without being sentimental, and stark when it needs to be. How To Be White: Racial tensions just never ease off in the US, and writers have to find new stories to tell, to draw readers into the many aspects of the issue and keep them engaged. In 1968 that was the water they swam in. I listened to part of the audiobook which Shayna Small narrates, and thought it was just okay. Jude, so Black that strangers routinely stare, is unrecognizable to her aunt. All this is expertly paced, unfurling before the book is half finished; a reader can guess what is coming. ' The Vanishing Half is an utterly mesmerising novel. Guardian. They are conjured not as real places, one feels, but as their mythologies, in how they exist in the imagination. But Bennett excels in conjuring the silences of families and in evoking atmosphere: the claustrophobia of the small town and its scuzzy and beloved saloon (“Cold Women! Her omniscient narration roves among story lines, introducing us to a cast of stock characters ... More than once, the plot turns on an outrageous coincidence. Desiree returns with her child 10 years later, while Stella is living in California, passing as white. Weaving together multiple strands of generations of this family, from the Deep South of California from the 1950s and 1990s, this emotional family story is also a timely exploration of American history. It seduces with its literary flair, surprises with its breath-taking plot twists, delights with its psychological insights, and challenges us to consider the corrupting consequences of racism on different communities and individual lives. The timbre of the woman’s voice didn’t really appeal to be, I found it to be a bit thin, but there was nothing objectively wrong with it. The characters in this book are so real, so warm … Review of The Vanishing Half. It debuted at number one on The New York Times fiction best-seller list. There will be spoilers so for more context about the story, check out my spoiler-free review. As the sisters’ separate lives unspool in widely different directions — with Stella, the novel’s most fascinating character, living in fear her real identity will one day be found out — Bennett explores the multiple ways in which race and gender can be authentic, permeable and socially constructed all at once, without ever passing judgment on her characters. Contribute Subscribe Contribute Gift options Search … Biography & autobiography: business & industry, Biography & autobiography: arts & entertainment, Biography & autobiography: historical, political & military, Biography & autobiography: science & technology, Biography & autobiography: religious & spiritual, Language teaching & learning (other than ELT), Modern history to 20th century: c1700 to c1900, Children's & YA poetry, anthologies & annuals, The Orwell prize for political fiction 2021, The Orwell prize for political writing 2021, The Women's prize for fiction 2021 longlist, Skip to the beginning of the images gallery. The omniscient authorial voice is gentle and compassionate in a tale that inverts and confounds expectations. You can take a listen to the clip on Amazon to see if it appeals to you, but it wasn’t to my taste personally. We have over 140,000 titles available to buy, and can ship all around the world. Hot Beer!” its sign proclaims), the jazz clubs in New Orleans where the twins first taste freedom. Stella eventually marries her white boss, who is unaware of her roots, and lives in a wealthy, white Los Angeles suburb. Looking well beyond issues of race, THE VANISHING HALF considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes … In “The Vanishing Half,” her follow-up to “The Mothers,” Brit Bennett writes about twin sisters from Louisiana who set out in very different directions. She lays out the twins’ paths from the shared trauma of their father’s lynching in the 1940s to their own daughters’ disparate outcomes into the 1990s. This generous, humane novel has many merits, not least its engrossing plot and richly detailed settings, from smoky small-town diners to gleaming laboratories. By AMBER PEARSON. The Vanishing Half Audiobook Review. "The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett for me started slow until I got invested in the characters and once that happened, I could not put it down! Bennett’s arresting, humane novel is an indictment on race and class in America. “Passing” requires utter vigilance; Stella must avoid black people who are most likely to spot her deception. Ten years later, Desiree has returned with a young daughter in tow, but no one has seen or heard from Stella, who, it turns out, is secretly passing for white, and her new family know nothing of her past. The dual narrative ebbs and flows through this astounding book. The Vanishing Half is a historical fiction novel by American author Brit Bennett. Read more... Return purchased items within 30 days for a full refund. Very compelling (I was hooked straight away) and beautifully-written. © 2020 The Bookseller, The Stage Media Company Ltd. 'The Vanishing Half' is a multi-generational tale that explores the changing times and beliefs of America in the latter half of the 20th century. In setting down the plot twists, parallels, shocks and returns of The Vanishing Half, I’ve sometimes felt that it might as well be a soap opera, a potboiler, a TV series (as it soon will be – HBO bought rights for a seven-figure fee at the end of June). HBO acquired the rights to develop a limited series with Bennett as executive producer. 'The Vanishing Half is an utterly mesmerising novel. The movie is phenomenally well made and the three actors who fall apart on our watch suffer magnificently. Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2020. The handling of Stella’s secret struggles is, however, an especial achievement. Support The Guardian. The Vanishing Half has unforgettable characters, complex familial ties, long-lost sisters, tragedy, and romance. Review: ‘The Vanishing Half’ reveals novelist Brit Bennett in full Brit Bennett pulls off her anticipated second novel, “The Vanishing Half,” brilliantly. Yet the novel proves to be a timely testament to the redemptive powers of community, connection and looking beyond the self. The extrovert Desiree is also a homing bird who returns to her sleepy home town. And she is deft at using figurative language. You wouldn’t mistake it for a stranger’s house but you’d keep banging your shins on the table corners’. This book is about choices and circumstance. In The Vanishing Half, she follows a set of twins after they leave their small, mainly Black hometown in Louisiana. Last updated at 19:07 29 June 2007 See All Buying Options. By tracing Stella and Desiree’s diverging paths, and the way their daughters are affected, the novel maps the lines drawn between white and Black people and dramatically exposes the emotional stakes of identity. The Vanishing Half...belongs to a long tradition of literature about racial passing ... Bennett roots out these withered tropes and reanimates them in a fresh, surprising story ... she leans into their prescribed melodrama. Sign up to get the best reviewed books of the week delivered every Monday morning - It begins in a small town in the Deep South, a place identical twins Stella and Desiree ran away from as 16-year-olds in 1954. Kennedy refers to her mother’s past as ‘a barren pantry shelf’; and Desiree, on returning to her hometown, reflects on how it looks different — ‘like a house where all the furniture had shifted three inches. I think this book works so well because the author has very carefully and thoughtfully Combining a mythic structure with emotionally rich social realism, this is a truly excellent novel. The Vanishing Half should mark the induction of Brit Bennett into the small group of likely successors to Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston and Nella Larsen. by Deepa Gahlot August 27, 2020. written by Deepa Gahlot August 27, 2020. Stella has to sacrifice so much of herself to maintain the lie. Available for everyone, funded by readers. Top positive review. The period details in The Vanishing Half are offered just as casually; an emergency Homeowners Association meeting in Brentwood in 1968, for example — the emergency being the “regretful news” that “the Lawsons on Sycamore Way were selling their house and a colored man had just placed an offer to buy it”. Which brings us to the water we’re swimming in now. How are ratings calculated? JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. Review. Four years later, her second, The Vanishing Half, more than lives up to her early promise. It seems a simple premise, almost playful; but Bennett, who took on the most delicate family secrets in her 2016 debut The Mothers, is not playing. The Vanishing Half has sold thousands of copies across the world this summer, and if thousands of people can forget the deadly virus, political mismanagement, racial violence, domestic violence, economic uncertainty and ecological disaster (as well as the washing-up, their overgrown fringe and their neighbours’ suspiciously un-distanced-sounding party), while reading a book that touches on all these things, resolves happily but not stupidly, and reintroduces them to Nella Larsen and Zora Neale Hurston and Lorraine Hansberry – well, that’s good enough. It fills you with questions, exposes you to realities you may never have thought of and of course keeps you up into the night reading. The Vanishing Half explores themes of race, family, and identity. Los Angeles-based Brit Bennet’s second novel, The Vanishing Half is the timeless tale of the Vignes twin sisters, who – while born identical – grow up to live two very different lives. It fills you with questions, exposes you to realities you may never have thought of and of course keeps you up into the night reading. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. In 1950s New Orleans, an identical twin, desperate for dignity, abandons her beloved sister to begin a starkly different life: she passes as white, her blackness kept secret for the rest of her life. Her shy sister turns out to be more adventurous and sheds her family as easily as a snake shedding its skin. It tells the story of twin girls growing up in the segregated South. This immersive novel about twins Desiree and Stella, who run away from the small, suffocating Southern town of Mallard when they're 16 to carve out a new life for themselves, should win many, many awards. The Vanishing Half gave me the kind of reading experience where I wanted to know what happens, but at the same time, I wanted to read slowly and be immersed in the story longer.It’s also the kind of book where I wanted to keep reading so badly, despite the need for sleep. The Vanishing Half: A Novel. The Vanishing Half may seem old-fashioned but it’s cleverly constructed to both match and critique the conservativism of the 1950s and 60s: the attenuated tone chimes with the restrained language and style of the period. “It’s not something I imagined when I started this book in 2014,” Bennett told Vanity Fair, “that it would be framed as being topical in some way.” But, of course, it does feel intensely topical; a novel that deftly rehearses the history of prejudice and suffering leading up to the present moment. The Vanishing Half Book Review. All Rights Reserved. The characters in this book are so real, so warm and so … We feel passionate about them, and we hope readers do too.’, "brings the saga of Ryan to a satisfying completion...", " a novel of complex feeling and beautiful restraint from one of the finest writers around....", "... it works best if you don’t sweat the details too much and just let its wave sweep over you....", "There’s a melancholy seam of emotion about family life here, as well as a keen eye for the absurdities of workplace culture...", "Jackson follows her brilliantly unnerving Never Have I Ever with another battle of wits between a manipulative criminal and her victim. Born in 1938 in Mallard, a small town in Louisiana, while their fair appearance may disguise their negroe heritage, they are very much part of the black community. Bennett’s novel isn’t quintessentially a novel, but I’m not so far away from that first reading to think that it needs to be something other than what it is. The violence is indelible, the twins’ complicated bond beautifully real. From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Mothers, a powerful new novel about the parallel lives of estranged twin sisters who choose to live in two very different worlds - one black and one white. Write a review. Stella’s lie takes her into a deep and jagged introspection that threatens the life she has so painstakingly built. Book club questions for The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett will take an in-depth look at this engaging novel about race, family and fate. Copyright © 2021 Guardian News & Media. In a style as easy and candid as a detective story, she scatters clues for us to gather just as, crucially, the twins’ contrasting daughters, Jude and Kennedy, piece together fragments of their painful heritage. The other, Stella, reinvents herself as a white woman and spends decades in an upper-middle-class California community, where she is forced to hide her secret. Fiction by women defies easy categorisation or stereotyping, and all of these novels grapple with society’s big issues expressed through thrilling storytelling. Bennett is a gifted storyteller. There is a third reading of a novel when you’re writing about it, one that necessarily takes you further away from the sunny weekend lying on the grass. Bennett has not been published in the UK before, although her debut, The Mothers, was a bestseller in her native US. Read Article Named as one of Oprah’s most anticipated books of 2020, The Vanishing Half follows the identical Vignes twin sisters, who choose to live in very different words – one Black, and one white. It’s a clever balancing act indeed to pair such heartbreaking material with a narrative that’s so much fun. https://guardianbookshop.com/the-vanishing-half-9780349701462.html Dialogue have swooped in over here, making this a super lead for 2020, and it deserves to be big. 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