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Virtual Encino Book Club
Sunday, February 21, 2021, 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM PDT
Category: Clubs

Please note time change as of 2/12/21 - Meeting now at 4:00 - 6:00 PM

LACPA’s Winter Book Club Selection:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

 

Book Summary:

The Vanishing Half is a novel about identical twin sisters, Desiree and Stella who grew up in Mallard, Louisiana, a town founded for "cream colored" blacks in Louisiana.  They escape to New Orleans where Stella meets a white banker and vanishes with him to live as his white wife in California.  Twenty years pass and each has a daughter:  "blue-black" Jude is Desiree's daughter, while Kennedy, a blond California girl, is Stella's daughter.  The daughters’ paths cross in Los Angeles and Stella's secret of 'passing for white" is threatened.  The complex themes of racial identity, family bonds and community norms for racial acceptance are carefully and skillfully explored in this excellent novel.  

The LACPA member who recommended the book stated that she couldn’t put it down and thus read it in two days. She found it suspenseful, quietly dramatic and extremely well-written.

 

Acknowledgments and Reviews:

Named a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by The New York TimesThe Washington PostTime, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, USA TodayGQVanity Fair, Harper's BazaarGlamour, and Bustle.

On Amazon 88% of those who reviewed it give it 4 or 5 stars; on Goodreads it is 86%.  

Amazon has many strong review excepts from professional book critics and authors that you might want to read.  For example the Associated Press reviewer wrote “Beautifully written, thought-provoking and immersive… Issues of privilege, inter-generational trauma, the randomness and unfairness of it all, are teased apart in all their complexity, within a story that also touches on universal themes of love, identity and belonging…  The Vanishing Half, with its clever premise and strongly developed characters, is unputdownable and highly recommended.” 

 

Probably needless to say, all Winter Book Club Meetings will be held via Zoom.  

 Please contact the Book Club facilitators to RSVP so a Zoom Invite can be sent to you


Contact: Dr. Sondra Goldstein [email protected] (818) 783-4683