Author Talk: The Vanishing Half with Brit Bennett

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THE VANISHING HALF is a New York Times bestseller that is both a riveting family drama and a searing examination of race and identity in America. 

As children, the identical twin sisters Stella and Desiree Vignes are inseparable. As adults, they live in completely different worlds. In California, Stella Vignes lives as a wealthy white woman, married to a white man who knows nothing of her past. Desiree Vignes lives as a Black woman in the Deep South and scraps together a living working in the local diner. However, even after decades apart, the sisters remain inextricably linked--especially when Desiree's daughter Jude unexpectedly meets Stella's daughter Kennedy. 

Spanning the entire country and taking place over four decades, The Vanishing Half explores the lasting influences of the past and the complicated realities of identity with compassion and insight.

Born and raised in Southern California, author Brit Bennett graduated from Stanford University. She later earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction. In 2014, she received the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers. She is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, and her debut novel The Mothers was a New York Times bestseller. Her second novel, The Vanishing Half, was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. Her essays have been featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Jezebel.

 

Facilitated by: Megan Behm, Book Club Operations Manager, PBC Guru
PBC Guru is a book club management company that believes in the power of lifelong learning communities centered around reading and thoughtful discussion.  PBC Guru partners with more than 250 higher education alumni associations and private high schools, businesses, library systems, and professional societies, around the world to create meaningful and vibrant online book clubs. PBC Guru's virtual book clubs allow over 130,000 members to participate from anywhere they are, and at whatever time is convenient for them.  With PBC Guru, Megan develops the content for, and moderates the discussions for over 50 book clubs reading titles from all genres. Before joining PBC Guru, Megan spent 10 years working in the performing arts and literary industries in Washington, D.C. and New York City. She is a life-long bookworm and a proud graduate of the College of William & Mary.