Rather, the novel invites readers to consider that “maybe pretending to be white eventually ma it so.” After all, The Vanishing Half isn’t a book about a Black woman who temporarily acts like a white woman it’s about a Black woman who lives the life of a white woman for the rest of her life. And yet, the book doesn’t necessarily frame her identity performance as a superficial act that is completely separate from who she really is. Stella’s decision to pass as white is, above all, a kind of identity performance, as she adheres to the various cultural expectations that society applies to white people. The fact that the two sisters look exactly alike is significant, since it illustrates the extent to which behavior and self-presentation become a person’s identity. As a result, the twins lead incredibly different lives: Stella and her light-skinned daughter benefit from the many societal privileges of being white, whereas Desiree and her dark-skinned daughter struggle with the racism that’s so prevalent in the United States. Desiree, on the other hand, marries a dark-skinned Black man and later moves back to Mallard. When Desiree and Stella run away as teenagers, Stella cuts ties with Desiree and begins passing as white.

Although Mallard is technically populated by Black citizens, everyone in town marries light-skinned people so that each new generation becomes lighter and lighter. They grow up in Mallard, Louisiana, a town that values light skin above all else.

The novel follows Desiree and Stella, two light-skinned Black women who are identical twins. The Vanishing Half suggests that racial identity is shaped by much more than the color of a person’s skin.

The vanishing half pages