The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett Book Analysis

The Vanishing Half is a book written by Brit Bennett which details the life of twins Desiree and Stella, along with their families and those close to them. These women’s lives are less than ideal from childhood. They face immense struggle and deal with a considerable amount of trauma and they weren’t given the space to talk about these struggles and work them out. They carried this trauma with them into adulthood and, unfortunately, into motherhood. Their daughters, Jude and Kennedy, ended up acquiring their own trauma from their mothers and it messed their own lives up as well. Looking at how the twins were starved of love as children and their unpacked trauma will help explain why their daughters act the way they do.

For most of the novel Desiree is coping with the disappearance of her twin sister, Stella. Desiree and Stella ran away from Mallard together and once Stella was ready she left Desiree alone in New Orleans. She was always talking about her whereabouts and she was concerned for her safety. Desiree is a very outgoing person, a loud character with her own struggles. Desiree needs an outlet. Her outlet for the longest time was her sister, and acting then she left school which meant no more acting and her sister abandoned her. She confided in her previous husband Sam , before he was an imminent danger to her and she ran away from him. She went back to Mallard and she couldn’t comfortably confide in her mother because she shamed her and berated her as she told her what happened when she left Mallard. She loves her daughter but she couldn’t be a good outlet for her. She lost her outlet and couldn’t emotionally provide for her daughter. Jude told her about how boys picked on her for being dark skinned and she told her it was a form of love. Knowing what she, herself has been through, why would she tell her young daughter that when she has nobody else? Once she rekindled with Early she was able to find an outlet, and she became happier, despite her circumstances, but she was emotionally neglecting Jude. The way she would light up around Early didn’t measure up to the way would react to her own daughter. Desiree clings onto those she can release around and everyone else gets treated differently no matter the status in her life. Jude picked up on this and learned to be okay by herself.

Stella is an extremely complicated character. Her big traumatic event was experiencing the lynching of her father. Out of the twins Stella is known as the more calm twin and in that moment Stella became unreadable. “Before, Stella seemed as predictable as a reflection. But for the first time ever, Desiree hadn’t known what her sister might do.” This event was so traumatizing that she wouldn’t want anyone, especially her own children, to experience what she did. She knew she had to eliminate the possibility of this ever happening to her again so she used her privilege to pass as white to her advantage. This traumatic event coupled with the fact that she didn't have access to higher education pushed her to want to leave Mallard, and later leave Desiree, and create a better life for her children.

Jude came to Mallard with her mother after escaping from her abusive father, Sam. Desiree never loved Jude outloud, due to not being able to confide in her. As a child she got used to this behavior from her mother, and tolerated it when her classmates would openly bash her, but show her love in private. She is a dark skinned woman and she has always been treated badly due to her deep complexion and was always used to people staring at her and giving her dirty looks. Desiree didn’t help her to learn to love her skin, she never called out her own mother for being disrespectful to her own daughter. This isn’t what mothers are supposed to do. She didn’t stand up for her daughter and affirm her and tell her she's beautiful. Knowing this, it makes sense why Jude doesn’t feel comfortable and isn't receptive to Reese showering her with affirmations and compliments because it's the first time someone has ever done that. “She hated being called beautiful. It was the type of thing people only said because they felt they ought to.” Luckily for Jude her relationship with Reese helped her learn how to love herself and heal from the trauma she has endured. At the end of the book there is a beautiful scene of her and Reese washing everything away in the moonlight. They are truly endgame and one of the only healthy relationships found in this novel.

Kennedy grew up in an “ideal” setting, she went to good schools, lived in a two parent household, and didn’t endure the same trauma that her mother did and she got everything she wanted. According to Stella this is the ideal childhood that she suffered for. This is the life that she created for her child, this is the life that she cut everyone off for. Unfortunately for Stella this type of childhood is not sustainable. Kennedy grew up seeing her mother constantly lie to her and herself. Interestingly, Kennedy picks up acting and becomes quite successful in this. She has this fleeting sense of identity and so does Stella both have had to become master actresses to stay alive. Whether it be a career to sustain yourself or to protect yourself from being hate crimed because of your identity. Kennedy never got to see her mother be comfortable within “her own'' skin. This white lady persona ate Stella up and Kennedy gave her multiple chances to come clean about it and potentially restart their relationship, but every time Stella chose to lie.  "'You know who I am! This, her mother said, jabbing at the picture, is not me. Look at it! She doesn't look anything like me'". Kennedy will have to suffer and cope with the fact that everything she knew about her mother was a lie.

Desiree and Stella were both emotionally neglecting their daughters. Desiree only showed love to those she could vent her emotions to and Stella was so self sufficient and so worried about keeping her secret that she forgot to emotionally nurture her daughter. Jude was able to unlearn and heal from her past due to having a good support system around  her. Kennedy was given the opportunity to dive into her mother’s real past but that does not erase all the wrong doings she had endured and the embarrassment she felt from hearing about your mother’s past from a stranger who claims to be your cousin. These women need to seek therapy. This amount of neglect and betrayal needs to be unpacked so they can all heal, especially since there was a mention of Jude being a mother at the end of the novel. These girls did not deserve the trauma they endured and their mothers didn’t deserve theirs. Jude and especially Kennedy need to learn how to be okay so they do not repeat this cycle of generational trauma and pass it on to their children. 

This is a prominent problem in the black community and there is no shame in going to therapy and unpacking trauma. Black children should not have emotionally unavailable mothers especially living in this America. There needs to be safe spaces for black mothers so they can work on themselves to be better for themselves and their children. Generational trauma is not a joke, this novel puts it into perspective how systemic racism and individualized trauma can affect a person and be passed down. As sad as it is these stories need to be told to spread awareness about mothers who aren’t emotionally available. Therapy isn't accessible to everyone but we as a society need to work toward a common good and create a new generation of happy black children.