The Vanishing Half: Twins who choose different paths learn the same lesson

 WORTH READING for sure.

This was a good, multi-generational story with somewhat flat characters that explores the role colorism plays inside the larger issue of racism. 

Twin sisters raised in a Southern town of light-skinned blacks (and such towns really existed, apparently) run away at 16 and wind up going two very separate ways. One twin marries a very dark Black man and has a blue-black child of whom she knows her mother will not approve. And the other pretends to be white to get a job and then just decides to stay that way, marrying the boss and never seeing her family again. While it may seem that the first twin has the harder life, as her husband turns out to be abusive and she must return to her colorist town with her extra black child, it is the "passing" twin for whom we feel the most sorry, as she betrays her family and her values to keep her secret. The passing twin acts racist and won't let her own children play with black kids for fear of what the neighbors will think. 

The book really provokes one to think about what it means to call someone Black; the twin who spends her adult life passing asks "Why wouldn't you be white if you just could be?" But as the book makes clear, there are many, many reasons why one would want to keep connection with one's culture, despite the disadvantages that may bring. Overall, although I enjoyed the novel, it felt a bit too much like I was being lectured to as opposed to just reading a great story where the learning is braided in.

 

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