Despite these efforts, they “would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated like Negroes.”Ĭolorism is deeply internalized in Mallard’s citizens. Mallard’s residents followed suit, painstakingly enough so that 100 years later, there were natural blondes and redheads. Mallard was founded in 1848 by Alphonse Decuir, a light-skinned freedman who married a mixed-race woman so that his children would have fairer skin. Even in the post-emancipation world, Mallard, a microcosm of society by and large, cannot escape its racist roots. After a year, they split apart and live very different lives shy, studious Stella, with her “creamy” skin, hazel eyes and wavy hair, marries a white man and passes as a white woman, whereas free-spirited Desiree has a child with “the darkest man she could find.”ĭesiree characterizes Mallard as “more of an idea than a place.” It is colorism embodied, built on the sugar cane fields where slaves used to tend. “The Vanishing Half” largely focuses on the aftermath of their escape from their hometown, Mallard, Louisiana. It tells a generational story of identical twins Stella and Desiree Vignes and their daughters set between the 1950s and 1980s. “The Vanishing Half,” by “ The Mothers” author Brit Bennett, is this summer’s must-read novel, which tackles themes like racism, colorism and identity with ease and eloquence.

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