She married her white boss and lives in California, but neither her husband nor their daughter, Kennedy, has any inkling of Stella’s big secret. While Desiree’s return causes quite a stir, no one has yet heard from Stella, who turned her back on not only her twin but also the rest of her family and is now passing for white. Such a detail is of particular interest in Mallard, which was established by its late founder as a place for people “who would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated as Negroes.” He hoped to create a “more perfect Negro,” with each “generation lighter than the one before.” Fourteen years later, Desiree is back, walking down the road with her “black as tar” daughter, Jude, beside her. The lost twins are Stella and Desiree Vignes, who ran away at age 16 in 1954. Her storytelling savvy is evident from the opening hook: One of the “lost twins” of Mallard, Louisiana, has returned. She now offers her second, a remarkable multigenerational saga called The Vanishing Half. Brit Bennett announced herself to the literary world in 2016 with her bestselling first novel, The Mothers.
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