海角大神

Surprises are rare in the little farm town of Mallard, Louisiana, but writer Brit Bennett knows that every small community is suffused with secrets and stories. In her second novel, 鈥淭he Vanishing Half,鈥� she immediately captivates readers with the mysterious 鈥渓ost twins鈥� Desiree and Stella Vignes, teenagers who 鈥渧anished from bed after the Founder鈥檚 Day dance, while their mother slept right down the hall.鈥�

It spoils nothing to say that the novel begins with Desiree鈥檚 eventual return home, trudging down Partridge Road in 1968 holding a small leather suitcase and towing a young girl along with her. Mallard鈥檚 inhabitants are stunned to hear that she鈥檚 reappeared and even question whether it鈥檚 really her 鈥� although, as a waitress remarks, 鈥渆ven a blind man could spot a Vignes girl鈥� because of her hazel eyes, wavy hair, and skin 鈥渢he color of sand barely wet.鈥�

Such fine gradations mean everything in Bennett鈥檚 fictional town, where colorism runs rampant among its African-American residents 鈥� a distillation of real historical attitudes whose bitter legacy endures today. In Bennet鈥檚 America, the town of Mallard was founded in 1848 by an ancestor of the Vignes girls: A freed slave named Alphonse Decuir, who inherited acres of sugarcane fields from his white father and former owner. Alphonse pledged to build a town 鈥渇or men like him, who would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated like Negroes.鈥澛�

Generations later, the twins explore the two split futures that Alphonse renounced, dividing their lives 鈥渁s evenly as their shared egg.鈥� Stella stakes out a new life far from Mallard, passing as a white woman and gaining access to new and better opportunities. Desiree marries 鈥渢he darkest man she could find,鈥� though the relationship becomes abusive and she eventually leaves it. Desiree returns to the place she had once 鈥� to her husband鈥檚 disbelief 鈥� said she hated. After all, he tells her, 鈥淣egroes always love our hometowns. ... Even though we鈥檙e always from the worst places. Only white folks got the freedom to hate home.鈥� Every piece of the novel鈥檚 plot is a Maypole ribbon weaving around that core of haven and race; according to Bennett, 鈥淵ou can escape a town but you cannot escape blood.鈥�

While the plot often hinges on coincidences as dramatic as a movie script, the twins鈥� characters feel real and complex enough for the reader to accept those developments as family lore. And Bennett makes it easy to see why the twins make the choices they do. None of their choices are without consequence; the repercussions of each sister鈥檚 decisions are passed down to their own daughters, who vanish in their own ways and whose stories eventually take center stage. When Stella asks her wild teenager, Kennedy, why she can鈥檛 just be herself, her daughter shoots back 鈥淢aybe I don鈥檛 know who that is鈥� 鈥� a telling consequence of Stella鈥檚 hidden past.

Leaping backward and forward through time, the story alternates narrators and passes through two generations as it explores its difficult truths. The book鈥檚 most uncomplicated romance, for example, involves a transgender man 鈥� a Texan who leaves behind the name Therese to become the 鈥済olden brown and handsome鈥� Reese in California. 鈥淗ow real was a person if you could shed her in a thousand miles?鈥� Reese wonders, a question that the Vignes family fully comprehends.聽

Teens will likely be as drawn to this book as their parents, but readers should note that the story includes brief but vivid scenes of child molestation and a lynching.

Behind the characters lies the constant presence of Mallard, which is too small to find on a map, but has an impact heavy enough to become its own kind of character. Each person who encounters it seems to either push it away or pull it close. Like another powerful, fictional home that Desiree contemplates, there鈥檚 no place quite like Mallard; living there is like being 鈥渋n The Wizard of Oz, but instead of a house dropping on her, she鈥檇 fallen through the roof and awakened, years later, dazed to realize that she was still there.鈥�