The Vanishing Half

The Vanishing Half follows the lives of twin sisters Desiree and Stella Vignes, who grow up in the small, tight-knit Black community of Mallard, Louisiana, where light skin is prized. At sixteen, the twins run away to New Orleans, but their paths diverge dramatically. Desiree eventually returns to Mallard with her dark-skinned daughter, while Stella secretly passes as white, marrying a wealthy white man and severing all ties to her past. The novel spans from the 1950s to the 1990s, exploring how the sisters' choices ripple through generations. When their daughters' lives unexpectedly intersect, long-buried secrets threaten to surface. Bennett masterfully weaves themes of identity, race, family secrets, and the American obsession with skin color into a multigenerational saga that examines what we inherit from our families and what we choose to become.

Brit Bennett is a bestselling American author from Southern California. She graduated from Stanford University and earned her MFA from the University of Michigan. Her debut novel, The Mothers (2016), was a New York Times bestseller. The Vanishing Half became a #1 New York Times bestseller and was longlisted for the National Book Award.