Ep 690 - The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett

Summary

Overdue Podcast Episode 690: A Deep Dive into The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Release Date: February 17, 2025

In Episode 690 of Overdue, hosted by Andrew and Craig from Headgum, the duo embarks on an insightful exploration of Brit Bennett’s acclaimed novel, The Vanishing Half. This episode delves into the intricate themes, character developments, and structural nuances that make the book a standout in contemporary literature.

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1. Introduction to The Vanishing Half

Andrew introduces the episode by highlighting the book's prominence on several best-of lists since its publication in 2020. He shares a personal anecdote about how his wife, Laura, influenced his decision to read the book, noting its recommendation by influential figures like Barack Obama. The Vanishing Half quickly rose to fame, hitting the number one spot on the New York Times Best Sellers list and garnering attention for its potential adaptation into a TV show.

Notable Quote:

Andrew, 04:16: "I read the Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. It's a book that's been on some best of lists for the last few years."

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2. Brit Bennett: Author Background and Early Works

Craig provides a comprehensive overview of Brit Bennett’s background, emphasizing her academic achievements with an English degree from Stanford University and an MFA from the University of Michigan. He notes that Bennett's debut novel, The Mothers, was published in 2016 to critical acclaim and was even optioned for a film adaptation with Kerry Washington attached to direct—a project that, despite initial excitement, has yet to materialize.

Notable Quote:

Craig, 05:13: "It was optioned for a movie, and then nobody ever follows up on it."

Bennett’s subsequent novel, The Vanishing Half, published in 2020, continues her exploration of themes such as identity, race, and family dynamics. Additionally, Bennett has contributed to The American Girl Company, creating literature for the character Claudy Wells, a black girl growing up during the Harlem Renaissance.

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3. Themes and Structural Analysis of The Vanishing Half

Andrew and Craig delve into the core themes of The Vanishing Half, particularly the concept of "passing" and its implications on identity and familial relationships. Andrew references Bennett’s intent to move beyond traditional narratives surrounding passing, striving to avoid clichés like the "tragic mulatto" trope commonly seen in literature such as Nella Larson’s Passing.

Notable Quote:

Andrew, 14:15: "It's about identity that follows from, among other things, one woman's decision to pass for white."

Craig brings attention to the novel's non-linear structure, noting Bennett’s method of jumping across different timelines and perspectives to weave a multifaceted narrative. He references a New York Times review by Ayanna Mathis, which critiques the book's structural choices—particularly the shift in focus from the original sisters to their daughters—as potentially detracting from the story’s vitality.

Notable Quote:

Craig, 30:00: "The novel fails to imagine meaningful storylines or compelling links between the young women and their mother's burdens."

Andrew counters by appreciating the depth this structure adds, comparing it to real-life memory recall where events are interconnected and not always linear.

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4. Character Dynamics and Development

The discussion extensively covers the novel's principal characters—Desiree and Stella Vignes—and their divergent paths. Desiree’s return to her hometown years after fleeing with her darker-skinned daughter, Jude, sets the stage for exploring the lingering impacts of past decisions. Stella’s choice to pass as white leads her to a life of privilege but emotional isolation in California, highlighting the personal costs of denying one's true identity.

Notable Quotes:

Andrew, 27:00: "Desiree is the first whole section of the book. And then, you know, you track her throughout the book because you have other characters thinking about her."

Craig, 49:42: "She is a woman who.... who never told or disclosed her true identity."

The hosts discuss how the novel also introduces Stella’s daughter, Kennedy, adding another layer to the generational narrative. Kennedy’s rebellious nature and secretive relationships mirror the complexities introduced by her mother's choices, adding tension and depth to the familial saga.

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5. Critical Perspectives and Insights

Craig references a New York Times review that critiques the novel’s focus shift from the original sisters to their daughters, suggesting it diminishes the emotional impact. Andrew acknowledges this perspective but offers a counterpoint by emphasizing the thematic richness introduced by exploring the second generation's struggles with identity and legacy.

They also discuss the novel’s portrayal of relationships—how love and pain coexist, and how characters navigate complex emotions and societal pressures. The reconciliation between Desiree and Stella towards the novel’s end, set against the backdrop of Adele’s Alzheimer's diagnosis, symbolizes a nuanced closure that resists traditional dramatic tropes.

Notable Quote:

Andrew, 57:20: "It's a version of her giving Stella an out where, like, one of the people who would really be interested to punish her just can't and isn't interested in it."

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6. Thematic Reflections on Identity and Passing

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the theme of identity, particularly how characters in The Vanishing Half construct and navigate their personas. Andrew draws parallels between Stella’s continuous passing and the performative aspects of acting, engaging in a playful debate about the nature of lying versus performance art.

Notable Quote:

Andrew, 39:26: "If acting is going to get to truth, which I do think it can do, it is usually because we go into a room or we sit in front of a screen where we like as the viewer and the audience agree to be part of the pretend so that we can experience real things in a controlled environment."

This exploration underscores how Bennett uses personal and societal identities to comment on broader racial and cultural dynamics.

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7. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In wrapping up the episode, Andrew and Craig reflect on the multifaceted narrative of The Vanishing Half, appreciating its depth and the honest portrayal of its characters’ struggles. They acknowledge the book’s strengths in thematic exploration and character development while also considering the critiques related to its structural choices.

Notable Quote:

Andrew, 64:20: "It's an interesting meditation on, like, what that would do."

The hosts express their gratitude for engaging with Bennett’s work, noting its relevance and the thoughtful conversations it inspires about race, identity, and family.

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8. Looking Ahead

Before concluding, Andrew and Craig tease the next episode, where they plan to read Invasion by K.A. Applegate, expressing curiosity about revisiting a beloved series from their childhoods.

Notable Quote:

Craig, 65:44: "Next week we are both reading the invasion Animorphs number one by K.A. Applegate. Looking forward to this."

---

Key Takeaways

• The Vanishing Half is a compelling exploration of identity, race, and the long-term consequences of personal choices.
• Brit Bennett’s non-linear narrative structure adds depth but may divide readers’ opinions regarding its effectiveness.
• The novel's focus on multiple generations provides a rich tapestry of character development and thematic exploration.
• Critical discussions highlight the balance between narrative structure and emotional resonance in contemporary literature.

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If you're intrigued by The Vanishing Half and enjoy deep literary discussions, be sure to tune into Episode 690 of Overdue for a comprehensive analysis and engaging conversation between Andrew and Craig.

Transcript

[Craig]

This is a Headgum podcast.

[Andrew]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name's Craig. It appears as if the other half of this podcast has vanished. So a hearty go Birds to all of you. I'm here in Philadelphia by myself. No co host. He's vanished. Just celebrating the Eagles victory. If I had another half here, I would chant. I would go, E, A, G, L.

[Craig]

E S. Eagles you summoned.

[Andrew]

I wasn't sure what the. I wasn't sure what negative zone you'd been banished to.

[Craig]

A genie trapped me in a lamp until somebody did the Eagles chant, but they didn't know that they were leaving their lamp in Philadelphia.

[Andrew]

You've been in and out of the lamp all day, haven't you? Yeah, that's how it works. If I say it again, do you go back in?

[Craig]

So thank you for picking up what I was putting down about my joke about the vanishing half.

[Andrew]

Well, you were moving around a little bit so I could talk.

[Craig]

I was trying. I was. Yeah, I was trying to signal.

[Andrew]

I hung up on the call.

[Craig]

Yes. I was trying to signal to you that it was not a technical difficulty. It was an intentional creative decision that I was making.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah.

[Craig]

As part of our entertainment product that we put out every week.

[Andrew]

Yep. When Andrew, the jazz of podcasting over here, that's what they call him.

[Craig]

It's about the intros. You don't do, you know, always.

[Andrew]

My name again is Craig and my name's Andrew. Yep.

[Craig]

And here we are another week doing.

[Andrew]

Our book podcast together in the city of Brotherly Shovel where we are two time Super bowl champions here celebrating Jalen Hurts. A.J. brown.

[Craig]

Monday was so sick. Monday was awesome. It was super fun to just go outside and walk around.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

On Monday because everybody was so happy. The barista guy was happy. All the people at the coffee shop were happy. The guy who lets me into preschool to pick Henry up was like dancing around because he was so happy. Everybody was talking about it.

[Andrew]

You know who didn't vanish?

[Craig]

There was another mom who showed up at drop off who was like head to toe, full Eagles like sweatsuit.

[Andrew]

Either half of the Eagles. Right. The offense showed up, the defense showed up. You know who vanished? All of the Kansas City Chiefs. They vanished.

[Craig]

Yeah, they're the vanishing half of the football game.

[Andrew]

That's true. Honestly. Honestly, that first half, though, wow.

[Craig]

My only. It was pretty brutal. And my only critique of the Eagles in that game is that they made the last. The final score look not as horrible as it.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

Was because everybody in the last, like, three minutes was basically like, yeah, we won this. Let's just let him. Let's just let them get a couple.

[Andrew]

They let. Well, then they let some of the backups in, you know, like, hey, you played in a. In a Super bowl that you won.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

That's fair. It's led to fun things like Simon yelling go Birds. At, like, bus fulls of people on the walk home from daycare.

[Craig]

He is a Philadelphia sports hooligan born and bred.

[Andrew]

I don't know what to do with him.

[Craig]

I'm glad that. I'm glad. I mean, he broke the. They broke the Simon curse.

[Andrew]

They broke the Simon curse.

[Craig]

He gets to do whatever he wants.

[Andrew]

That's true. He's in charge now.

[Craig]

And now he needs to do exactly this every single season for the rest of time. So they keep winning.

[Andrew]

It's true. It's true.

[Craig]

Anyway, go Birds. This is our book podcast where every week one of us reads a book that we've never read before. Super Bowls come and Super Bowls go, but overdue is forever. This week, Craig, what did you read?

[Andrew]

I read the Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. It's a book that's been on some best of lists for the last few years. Think it came out in 2020. Laura, my wife, had read it for. I got you. I sniped you with that one.

[Craig]

Dang it.

[Andrew]

From the 50 yard line. Laura had read it a year. Year or two ago, maybe a little bit longer for a book club that she was in. And I remember her digging it. When she saw me taking notes on this, she was like, oh, you read this one? Did you like it? And I was like, she, you know, not always the case that she sees me taking notes and immediately is like, I gotta tell you that I liked this book. So, yeah. Yeah, it had been. I think it was on one of Obama's lists. You know, he does those book lists.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Where you're like, really read all those.

[Craig]

Yeah. The lists that Barack Obama and. Or his gaff puts out every year with a bunch of books on it. I did write that in my.

[Andrew]

In my notes, but other than that, other than it being kind of in the zeitgeist of the last few years, I don't know. I had not heard of Brit Bennett before this book, and I didn't really know much about it going in, other than some inferences based on, like, the title and the way it had been discussed. So.

[Craig]

Yeah. So her. You know, the list of publications that she's put out is relatively small. So she was born in or around 1990. She's an American essayist and novelist. She earned an English degree from Stanford University and an MFA from the University of Michigan. She has her first book come out in 2016. This is called the Mothers. Published to good reviews. It was optioned for. Okay. Nominated for 2016 Goodreads Choice Award for debut author. Cool option for a film adaptation in 2017 with Kerry Washington attached to direct.

[Andrew]

Kind of the height of Kerry Washington's power. I think this.

[Craig]

And also this is one of those. And this has happened to us a bunch.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

But Wikipedia book summaries love to be like, yeah. And it was optioned to be a movie, and then nobody ever follows up on it. And I. So all, you know, all I could find about this movie, of course, was the, like, Hollywood Reporter article from when the announcement happened, and there's been absolutely nothing since. And so that doesn't. That doesn't mean the movie's not happening. It might be stuck in production hell somewhere. I don't know. But I feel like Wikipedia needs to have a statute of limitations for, like, oh, yeah, this movie's not happening.

[Andrew]

Do you think that those get added by publicists? Or is there, like, a person whose job it is, whose life's work is to catalog all of these film options on Wikipedia?

[Craig]

The first one would explain why they show up and then are never followed up upon.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Yes. The passion of. The passion of book, Jeffrey, that I've conjured in my brain, who's, like, really into this. That's his handle. Excuse me?

[Craig]

Ookjeffrey. Two F's.

[Andrew]

He would probably come back around to each of them and let us know that they weren't happening.

[Craig]

Yeah. Like, as. As of this year, nothing else had been but Kerry's.

[Andrew]

Kerry Washington's people are probably good to be. Like, maybe. Who knows? Yes.

[Craig]

I mean, maybe. Maybe. I mean, I think a lot of time, at some point, the rights revert back to the author so they can sell them again. But I don't know.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Anyway, this movie hasn't happened.

[Andrew]

Nope.

[Craig]

That was her first novel. The second novel is the book that you read. The Vanishing half, published in 2020, hits. Number one on the new York Times bestsellers list. Also in work to be adapted into a TV show.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Aziza Barnes and Jeremy Oharis attached to write and executive produce. Now, aside, this announcement came out in 2021. Aside from another announcement that Jeremy O. Harris was departing the project in 2022. Not a lot of recent news about this one either.

[Andrew]

Nope.

[Craig]

Though HBO allegedly paid seven figures for it, which seems like a lot for a show that. That is not going to end up happening. But it's, it is really tough because the zeitgeist since 2021 has changed a lot of times.

[Andrew]

It has changed a lot of times. It obviously Covid happened. This book came out, I think in one interview. She says it came out like maybe a week or two after the killing of George Floyd. I don't remember the exact publication date. And so like she is writing about things. You know. She also got her book deal for the Mother after she wrote an article for Jezebel 2014.

[Craig]

Yeah, I was going to go. I was going to go back to this like. So those are, those are the two novels that she's written. She also has worked with The American Girl Company does the American Girl dolls in 2022 and 2023. She published a couple of books to go with a character that she made named Claudy Wells, who's a black character who grew up during the Harlem Renaissance in 1922. But those are, those are the four books that she's written.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

She, she first tracks like a lot of notice when she. She's at U of M in 2014 working on her MFA. She publishes an essay for Jezebel back when. Back when it was part of the Gawker media empire. Rip in peace.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Craig]

Boy, I do wish that it was still around in its decade ago form because it's. Yeah. She is writing in response to the deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner at the time at the hands of police, specifically responding to the decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting. And this is in a piece called I Don't know what to do with Good White People. I've just got a couple of quotes from summarize it and give you. Yeah, we could talk about this perspective and how it does or does not show up in this book, which is about. Primarily about like passing for white. Yes, it's.

[Andrew]

It's about identity that follows from, among other things, one woman's decision to pass for white. Yes.

[Craig]

Okay. I did not, I didn't read a synopsis. That's the one thing that all the interviewers and stuff she says, I don't know what to do with good white people. I've Been surrounded by good white people my whole life. Good white people living in my neighborhood who returned our dog when he got loose. Good white teachers in elementary school who pushed books into my hands. Good white professors at Stanford, a Bay Area bastion. Good whiteness who recommended me. MFA programs where I met good white writers. Liberal enough for a Portlandia sketch. I should be grateful for this. Who in generations of my family has ever been surrounded by so many good white people? And over the last. Over the past two weeks, after the non indictment is the.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Craig]

Is the context for that. I've seen good white people congratulate themselves for deleting racist friends or debating family members or performing small acts of kindness to black people. Sometimes I think I'd prefer racist trolling to this grade of self aggrandizement. A racist troll is easy to dismiss. He does not think decency is enough. Sometimes I think good white people expect to be rewarded for their decency. We are not like those other white people. See how enlightened and aware we are. See how we are good. Over the past two weeks, I have fluctuated between anger and grief. I feel surrounded by black death. What a privilege to concern yourself with seeming good while the rest of us want to seem worthy of life.

[Andrew]

That's the quote I had pulled as well. Yes. Yeah. The other one.

[Craig]

That's a. That's a. That is a. That's a. A tough. A strange piece to read at a point where everybody in a position of power in the United States of America has decided that it's cool to go like, full mask off and just like start bringing all the old slurs back.

[Andrew]

Yes. And that like the last 10 years of. We could attempt to call it. Progress on this stuff has been to their. To the people in power's minds, a grave error. Right. That must be rectified. The other thing, I thought, like an interesting little, like, sentence or point that she turned around in that piece talking about, like, what good intentions means and like, cops and things like that. And she says, I don't think Darren Wilson or Daniel Pantaleo set out to kill black men. I'm sure the cops who arrested my father. She tells a whole story about the arrest of her father who was a. The first black city attorney in Oceanside, California. I'm sure the cops who arrested my father meant well, but what good are your good intentions if they kill us? So she's even like, willing to, like, what if I extended grace to you cop who killed someone? Like, where does that lead us? And the, the point, the reason I was bringing this up was that, you know, she's offered her book deal that turns into the Mothers because an agent reads this and is like, hey, I could be an agent to the next Ta Nehisi Coates. And she's like, did you know I'm a novelist? And so she writes a novel and then vanishing half. She's working on it for years after this first book, and then it comes out amidst the uprisings following the killing of George Floyd. So it's not like she was writing to either books, like, to their moments, as it were. But she's a writer coming into her career and her voice in the decade in which these things are happening. She.

[Craig]

She talked a little bit about that in an interview with vox.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah.

[Craig]

You spend so long writing a book, you have no idea what the context will be like when the book actually comes out. For me, I kept thinking, like, oh, this book is going to come out in an election year. And I thought that would be the context surrounding the book. And then I started to realize it was going to come out during a pandemic. And then that felt like a context I could not have predicted and most of us couldn't have. And then the book came out maybe a week after George Floyd was killed, and the conversation turned so squarely in that moment to Ra. So it was strange. But I had to realize that any sort of label of timeliness is something that comes from outside of the book. Timeliness is a label that's applied externally, and it's definitely not anything that's in your hands as the writer.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure. Andrew, you mentioned this is a novel about passing. I feel like it's been covered in a few books that we've read. The main one that I'll point people to is back in episode 329. I remember reading Passing by Nella Larson. That is kind of like the prototypical one. The title is right there. You know, how else are you gonna avoid it? But that is one that, among other things, it traffics in this trope called the tragic mulatto of, like, a woman who is trying to pass a black woman trying to pass as white. And she meets a, like, an untimely end. And it's this, you know, trope of, like, well, because you don't fit in either community, you are sad and must be destroyed sort of thing.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And in that VOX interview and a couple other places she is interested in, like, I. I know about those, and I'm not gonna write one of those. I'm not interested in Punishing the people who. Or condemning the people who pass in this story, but am interested in, like, the consequences of it.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

So it's just interesting when you have folks who are, like, who are doing the work to be in conversation with, you know, a genre or a topic of fiction. And yeah, I think it explains why this book is, like, maybe kind of messier than it first thinks it's going. Then it first presents itself, which we'll talk about, because it is. She is interested in more than just what if I wrote a book about passing? I think.

[Craig]

Yeah. And this was mostly well reviewed, like, almost universally well reviewed. But then I did find one New York Times books review that was talking a little bit about, like, structural concerns and like, not every character being as, like, engaging as. We'll talk about that as others. So, yeah, we can talk about that in the book part. But, like, that's. That's what I've got about. What I've got about her.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

I don't know if you had anything else that you wanted to hit.

[Andrew]

The only other thing I'll say, because it may or may not fit into the discussion neatly, is that, like, one of the first places you meet in this book is a town called Mallard that is not really a town. It's not on any maps. And it was found in real life.

[Craig]

Or in the book.

[Andrew]

In the book. In the book.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And it is this town that was on, you know, a freed black man's land in Louisiana. And everyone there is obsessed with being light skinned and prioritizes it. And it's very colorist community. And she says she was inspired by a conversation with her mother about a Louisiana town where everyone, quote, sort of intermarried so that their children would get lighter each generation. And she goes on, I think this is from an NPR interview to talk about how it was a time where there is a. More. You know, the book is set in the 60s, but, you know, this town that we hear about goes back to the 40s. And in the story that we see, and it's a time in which there's like Jim Crow's. Jim Crow's in full force. So, like, everything is segregated. And so all these people live in a binary. There is not kind of a more. There is advantage or more explicit advantage to kind of the going back and forth between the binary of black and white that we might have a more nuanced view of today. But it's just kind of interesting that it came from conversations with her mother and thinking about this like it is A made up town, you know. But her mother, her mother did grow up in Louisiana. There's like little tidbits about her family where like her mom also worked as a fingerprint analyst, which is a detail that one of the characters has, has like a little bit of like. And then they say computers are gonna do this. And I don't know how computers can do this. And I did appreciate that was kind of funny. But yeah, that's, that's the background on Bennett in this book that I think we can cover. And after the break, I will tell you how the other half vanishes.

[Craig]

I can't wait. Craig, do you ever feel like your, your brand is vanishing?

[Andrew]

You know, sometimes and I.

[Craig]

That your foot, your footprint on the World Wide web is vanishing. That's not as visible as it could be.

[Andrew]

Well, because my websites are always under construction. They've got that little GIF on them and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to code.

[Craig]

Craig, this podcast is brought to you by Squarespace and they're going to take care of all of that for you. They will give you a website that's made out of code, but you don't need to know how to code at all. Just like you can go to the store and a bread and it will be bread, but you don't need to know how the bread got made if.

[Andrew]

You don't want to. Yeah, it's just like websites.

[Craig]

It's like, it's like bread. But for websites, they give you easy to use templates and drag and drop tools and 24. 7 customer support. All the stuff that you need to make a website that looks great without needing to know all the technical nitty gritty. Here's some other things that we like about Squarespace. Design Intelligence. Using two decades of industry leading design industry leading design expertise, Squarespace will help you unlock your strongest creative potential. Design intelligence empowers anyone to build a beautiful, more personalized website tailored to their unique needs and craft a bespoke digital identity to use across one's entire online presence. You also got SEO tools. You're going to get visible fast with these bad boys. Every Squarespace website is optimized to be indexed with meta descriptions, an auto generated sitemap and more. So you show up more often to more people in global search engine results. Boy, you'd have trouble vanishing with features like these. You can also sell content. Squarespace makes it easy to sell access to content on your websites like online courses, blogs, videos and memberships. Earn recurring revenue by gating your content behind a paywall. Simply set the price and choose whether to charge a one time fee or subscription for access. If any of this sounds like it would be appealing to you, you can show up whatever the opposite of vanishing is. You can appear at your desk and go to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch squarespace.com overdue to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com overdue to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain.

[Andrew]

Squarespace. The best thing since sliced code.

[Craig]

Oh my God.

[Andrew]

Okay, Andrew, I've reappeared.

[Craig]

Okay. I didn't know that you had disappeared.

[Andrew]

Well, I vanished for a split second there at the end of the ad break. I just. I couldn't believe what I said. I had to leave. I have, like, I have takes. I have.

[Craig]

I can't.

[Andrew]

Character based. I have character based summary. I have some thoughts about the ending and the themes. I don't know. Where do you want to start? This isn't a choose your own adventure episode, but like, you know, sometimes I like to just throw it back at you and be like, hey, where do you want me to start?

[Craig]

Sure, yeah. I mean, so take me through the structure first, I guess. Like, are we talking? So my. The other thing that I learned about the plot of the book, other than that there is a character who is passing for. For white in it, is that it is kind of a generational tale. Like, it's like mothers and their daughters. I think mostly.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

Is. So are things happening in chronological order? Are we jumping around a lot? How are we encountering this book?

[Andrew]

Boy howdy, we're jumping. It's not full on Tarantino over here, but it is. Bennett does like to tell things out of order. The book ranges from some stuff that's covered in like the 40s or 50s. But the two main characters that we care about the most, Desiree and Stella, the two twins, the sisters. They leave this town of Mallard in 1954. One of them reappears in 1968. And then the story goes as far as references to the early 90s, though, I think the chapters that have like, or the. The sections of the book that have years attached to them go as. Maybe as late as 1988, I think. But one of the things that she likes to do is she will jump forward in time at the beginning of a section or at the beginning of a chapter and then she will kind of. I don't Want to say haphazardly, because that's not what she's doing, but that.

[Craig]

Makes it sound less planned than it is.

[Andrew]

Vibes based, complimentary in the sense that, like, in the way that a person might recount their life. Oh, I was doing this. And then, oh, you know, that reminds me of this thing from when I was like, seven. And then. Okay, let me tell you. Let me tell you about this thing from like three years ago. Okay, and then let me jump over here and tell you about this thing that. That's gonna happen. A lot of the book moves in this kind of, like, stutter step a few years forward, a few years back. Sometimes in the middle of a chapter, you're gonna get a memory. And it can be a little disorienting. I think folks who are unsatisfied with the book or wish it were doing things it's not interested in doing, that might be one of their struggles is that it is not a, like, linear thriller plot or something. And there is stuff in the beginning of the book that presents itself as if it's going to go that way. Where you open, you get introduced to the town of Mallard. You get introduced to this community where they really prize this black community that really prizes light skin. And right up, right up until maybe passing, you know, but there's still a black community, as evidenced by the fact that the two twins, Desiree and Stella, when they are six or seven, I think their dad is lynched and killed in their house in front of them. And I think it's Stella later. I can't remember. No, it's Desiree, I think, who is basically like, why are we. Why is this community pretending to be this way and prioritizing light skin? Like, we're all still black and the white people will still kill us if they want to. Like, what are we doing here? And so the central mystery at the beginning of the novel is that these two girls ran away from their hometown and nobody knows where they went. And one of them, desiree, comes back 14 years later and she has a daughter, Jude, who is much darker skinned than her. The characters use the term blue black, like, very dark skin, which means, you know, she married or, you know, she did marry a much darker man than her. And is the mystery of why is she back? What happened to her while she was gone? And also, where is her sister? And then the other mystery that's set up is that she doesn't know where her sister is. They ran away to New Orleans. They started a life down there. The Two of them, they were running low on money. Stella decides to pass as white to get a job as a secretary, and then one night, she's.

[Craig]

How long do you think she would be a secretary? Is she looking to be kind of like a permanent secretary, or is she looking for more like a side gig?

[Andrew]

Well, it's interesting. I don't know how Sir Paul McCartney would phrase it, because she needs the money, so she's probably going to do it. Well, she's a. She's temporarily a white secretary because then she goes home and she's with her sister, and she's not acting white anymore, but she is a secretary for a while until she marries her boss and they move to California, and then she stops being a secretary.

[Craig]

That's kind of what the Paul McCartney in the song Temporary secretary is looking for. That's so secretary.

[Andrew]

What is the.

[Craig]

Actually.

[Andrew]

What's the thing? What's the thing that the what. Where they schedule all the drugs. What is that called? Is it dsm? What is that book? I don't remember, but I think it's like, that book is like a schedule. Something narcotic. Like, that thing is messed up, that song. Yeah, that song is messed up.

[Craig]

Yeah. I played. I played it in a music league and got bodied. Like, nobody likes temporary secretary except for problems.

[Andrew]

I played it in an early music league years ago and crushed, because it was like an earworms category where people hated me for it. It was so good. But, yeah, she's a temporary white secretary, and she disappears on her sister, on her twin sister, and leaves a note that says, sorry, honey, but I've got to go my own way. And that's it. And so Desiree has not seen her sister since this fateful moment years ago.

[Craig]

If I stop doing this podcast, that's the note you're gonna get.

[Andrew]

Just post just me on Blue Sky. Sorry, hon, but I've got my own way. Estella's gone, and Desiree doesn't know what to do. And so the whole first part of the book is largely over Desiree's shoulder. And you're getting her, like, coming back to her hometown and all of her feelings about that. You're getting the backstory of how they left in the first place. There is. You get her marriage that she ran away from because her husband Sam, had become abusive, and she gets her. Herself and her daughter out of that situation, and he hires this bounty hunter named early, which is. And everyone. The whole. It's a recurring thing in this book that everyone's like, that's not a name. And he's like, well, it's the only one I have. And wouldn't you know it, he and Desiree had, like, a thing when they were young. And so he is not actually gonna turn her in ever. And actually he's gonna try and find Stella for her. Like, that's the first maybe not quite quarter of the book. And you're like, wow, this is kind of a pot boiler on top of these interesting themes that it's setting up.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

And then you're following. You're like 15 years later or something. And you're following Desiree's daughter Jude, as she goes off to California to go to college. And she falls in with her new boyfriend, who is a trans man, and she's befriending this drag queen named Barry, and she's just kind of like, living a cool life in California. And I'm like, wait, where'd the. Was there a mystery? Was I supposed to care about a mystery or. No? And I ultimately was like, I don't need to care about the mystery. But I do think folks who did get disappointed or get kind of frustrated by this, like, why am I following her daughter around? I was invested in these twins.

[Craig]

See, this is. This is the. The bone that the New York Times.

[Andrew]

Review books had that Ayanna Mathis review.

[Craig]

I think she says of the. Of the perspective hopping the novel Bennett's first after her much admired debut. The mothers might well have stayed with these women in whom there is such depth, depth, possibility, and dramatic propulsion. Instead, it switches focus to their daughters in so. And in so doing, loses vitality. And then later on, she says the novel fails to imagine meaningful storylines or compelling links between the young women and their mother's burdens. As a result, their sections struggle to find momentum and weight. I think we've. We've definitely read books that have done inter. In intergenerational, like, jumping around in ways that, like. I'm thinking of like, pachinko. We did recently that a little bit.

[Andrew]

Okay. I'm okay.

[Craig]

All right.

[Andrew]

Okay, Boss. Baby guy voice. This book gave me some pachinko vibes. Slash complimentary in the sense it's not as many generations as pachinko. And the thing about pachinko relative to this one is I think there's a. More. If I'm remembering correctly, that book is a little bit more intentional about always moving forward. And yeah, that's.

[Craig]

That's a difference between the way the book versus the TV show is structured, is the TV show is jumping around like this is in the book, as I recall, because you're the one who read it, was split into distinct sections.

[Andrew]

That was what was interesting about the choice for the show and the way that that novel is, like, willing to just kind of, like, leave people back in time if necessary. And that is something this book does a version of where. And this might be a little too pat of me as a reading, but I think that Bennett is willing to, like, cut and move on to the next thing in a way that is not dissimilar from, like, how folks like Stella or even Desiree, who doesn't go on to pass, but she does, like, run away from home. Like, people in this book are intrigued and then act on the notion of, like, what if I just, like, put all my past in a bucket and then, like, shoved it away and didn't tell anybody about it? Like, could I live my life that way? What would happen if I did that? Oh, no, I didn't think about all the ramifications. And now all these, like, chickens are coming home to roosters. But this book is very interested in kind of closing a door on your past and then what happens afterwards in a way that is similar to, like, this book does not want to, like, cleanly set up dominoes and then knock them down. Desiree is the first whole section of the book. And then, you know, you track her throughout the book because you have other characters thinking about her, but you don't come back around to her as a POV character or anything close to that until the end. And, like, I missed my man early. Like, he was gone for a long, long time. And so you have these. I think the. The sequence of the book, if I'm correct, is Desiree, her daughter Jude. And then Jude's whole section ends with her working as a caterer. Or the initial section of Jude anyway, ends with her as a caterer working at a party in California for some rich people. And all of a sudden, she sees a woman who looks exactly like her mother come into the party, and, you know, she drops a bottle of wine, and. And then it cuts. And then that section's over. And now we're with Stella, who has been passing this whole time. And now you get, like, the immediate setting that Stella's in, and then you get to see some of her backstory, and then you get to move the plot forward a little bit. And then you get Stella's daughter, Kennedy, I think, as the next section before the book starts to, like, finally wrap things back around on itself.

[Craig]

Sure. Yeah. It's Interesting that the, the time jumping is not used to. More to like better effect, I guess, like based on, based on what you're saying and what this review says. Because I found it.

[Andrew]

I found it worked fine. I don't know if I'm underselling it, but I, I get what the reviewer is saying.

[Craig]

But for I. I'm just the, the essay that she, she did for Jezebel. I don't know what to do with good white people. Like, part, part of what makes that essay effective is the, like, I don't. I don't want to deny that progress has happened. Like, she, she talks about things that her mother dealt with. Talks about, I think her grandmother being like some, some document that she read about, like a social welfare reporting her. Her grandmother and like all the stereotypes that that was trafficking in, even though the person who wrote it isn't like, was like not trying to be racist about it. Yeah, but. Yeah, for that essay to be so nuanced in the way that's like, yes, progress has been made. But like, in some ways I think it says her grandma or somebody in her family says, you know, in some ways it was easier to be in the south because then, you know where you stood with all these racist white people.

[Andrew]

I think actually my experience with this book is that it is sort of doing a version of that. And I'm glad that you're. I'm actually grateful for you to like, think through the essay in that way because I hadn't. I thought about it that way because.

[Craig]

I'm a smart boy now.

[Andrew]

What do you are.

[Craig]

What kind of, what kind of things is that making your old noodle.

[Andrew]

What does the lady in the Matrix say? Something about bacon. You're going to have to be.

[Craig]

You're going to have to be more.

[Andrew]

You can't just Google what is the lady of the. That is. I think the Oracle says something like, does that really cook your noodle?

[Craig]

Something. I don't know.

[Andrew]

There is no your noodle.

[Craig]

I hope that you find something.

[Andrew]

No, the AI says bake your noodle is a phrase from the Matrix movie. And it doesn't mean literally to cook your noodle. God, there's. I just killed a tree to learn that. Jesus.

[Craig]

Stupid lying computer nonsense.

[Andrew]

No, I, I think the. So there's a section in when we finally get to Kennedy, who. Okay, like, I'll try to speed run some stuff before I go back. But like we get Jude's section, which I really like for some. For some reasons I'll get into later about the theme of identity, which ends with setting up, oh, now we're going to spend time with Stella. Stella's part when she's. When we're not getting the fill in on the backstory that the book has so far deprived us of, is also her as this white woman existing. She's got a daughter, she's got her husband, they're very rich, they live in California. And she is like, protesting a black family moving into their, like, private community, basically. And then she winds up befriending this woman and then winds up ruining it because she's a mess. Because her whole life, you know, her life is founded on a lie or at least a constructed identity that she is, you know, always anxious about. And then we get the sequence from Kennedy, who is her daughter, who for, you know, most of the book does not know that her mom is black and is kind of a screw up and, you know, rebels by becoming an actor, which, oh, boy, that's fun to read. And she.

[Craig]

But you didn't. You didn't do that.

[Andrew]

No, I didn't do that.

[Craig]

The actors can't hurt you.

[Andrew]

It does play up. If there is some stuff from Kenny's perspective that plays up. The acting is lying trope. That is a real bugaboo of mine. I don't like that.

[Craig]

Wait, what don't you like about it? You don't like when people point it out?

[Andrew]

It's not, It's. That's not what it is, though, Craig.

[Craig]

It's all lying.

[Andrew]

There is a version.

[Craig]

This is what happens anytime that anything happens in a fictional show and Susanna's like, that's not how it really happened. Happen. I do have to tell her that it is all just P10.

[Andrew]

No, it can be P10 without being lying, Andrew.

[Craig]

And Ptend is lying.

[Andrew]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Ptend is lying.

[Craig]

It's not real. It's lying. It's benign lying. It's lying for entertain.

[Andrew]

We all know that it's lying. No, like, okay, Candid Camera is lying, right? Candid Camera. I don't. You don't tell me that they're all actors. That's lying.

[Craig]

You are.

[Andrew]

You are distinguished. Know that. I know you are. Distinguishing Davidson isn't all those characters on SNL like, I know you were talking about deceiving.

[Craig]

You can. You can deceive. I think that you can lie to some. You can lie to somebody without deceiving them, Craig. You can. This may be the most that we've ever fought on the podcast. I kind of like it.

[Andrew]

I Just think that, that there, if acting is going to get to truth, which I do think it can do, it is usually because we go into a room or we sit in front of a screen where we like as the viewer and the audience agree to be part of the pretend so that we can experience real things in a controlled environment. And that, that to me is not lying because I am in on it. It's not like we had an agreement. You can look in the book and like, you know that I'm playing, you know, Moon Fight, Moonface Mooney or whatever the guy's name is from Anything Goes. Like.

[Craig]

All I'm saying, Craig, is listen, let's go back to the Matrix because you like the Matrix. We're watching Keanu Reeves play a character named Neo in the Matrix and he says, I know kung Fu. And we know that this is all P10. This is all P10. He doesn't really. He doesn't really know kung fu.

[Andrew]

It's not a lie though.

[Craig]

It is. He is lying. He says, I know kung Fu and it's not true. It's a lie.

[Andrew]

I think it's a lie. Keanu Reeves goes on the press tour and says, I know Kung Fu in the movie.

[Craig]

It's okay, but it's, it's still lying. It's just, I'm not, I'm not implying that there's some kind of value judgment about the lying. I think fiction is great, but fiction is just a nice shirt that we put on a lie to make it seem cool.

[Andrew]

But that's okay. I. I'm. What I will. What I will concede, which is what I said earlier, is that there is form. There are forms of acting that, that are deceitful on purpose. But anyway, all that to say part.

[Craig]

Of what I'm enjoying about this is knowing how. Knowing how hard we are going to hear about it from everybody who listens to our podcast.

[Andrew]

Just really been straining my brain to come up with different references. But anyway, it's important that acting is part of this theme of identity in the book because, you know, Stella talks about performing and performance when she is passing. Desiree is someone who's interested in acting in school. Kennedy ultimately becomes an actress herself. It's like part and parcel with the DNA of the book. I just needed to bring up my acting is lying thing because it's. I was in the car and I started to honking the horn as I was listening to the audiobook. But this the chapter where it is introduced that she goes on to have a like kind of minor on a. Sit on a. On a soap opera is a good example of the flow of this like timey wimey stuff. So this chapter opens in like 1988 and it's like, oh, she's a. She is on this soap opera called Pacific Cove. Great name for a soap opera. She is playing a character called Charity Harris. Amazing name.

[Craig]

That's a. That's a good name. It's got a good. You got like a repeated vowel sound. It's really satisfying.

[Andrew]

And she's got a nine month storyline where she's trapped in a basement tied to a chair. And like that's the biggest part of the show that she has. But.

[Craig]

But you. But you know what? She isn't. Craig is. She's not literally really tied in a. She's not tied to a chair.

[Andrew]

That's what makes it not a lie anyway.

[Craig]

No, it's still lying.

[Andrew]

So in 1988 she's on a soap and then in the next section of the chapter it's like, oh, here's something she remembered for when she was seven and it was when Stella slipped up and mentioned the town of Mallard or something like that. And then it's like, oh no, here's a thing that she's remembering in 1985 that was. That furthers the plot line with Jude who she becomes connected with and then it makes references to when her acting career kind of peters out in the 90s. And so I don't think it is. I did not find it confusing this time. Jumping and to your point about the Jezebel essay, I feel like it is a. It's a thing that Bennett's mind just is interested in. It is just like I can connect this part of this person's life with this other part of her life and it doesn't need to follow a neat like plot line per se. It just is like, well, here's the next thing that this person's like brain is thinking or what I am thinking about them. So yeah, that's kind of like. I feel like we've talked a lot about what it feels like to read this book. Structurally, I found Jude and Kennedy interesting. I think Kennedy is like the least interesting of the four characters in the book. Just because she's like, I don't know. You kind of know by the time you meet her and spend time with her, you know what the book is setting up in that she is a white girl who does not know that her mom is black. And something is going to boil over where she learns this Truth or has to act on it or something. Stella's whole chapter, whole, like part of the book I found really compelling because she's really unsympathetic because, you know, she has left her family behind and you like, have grown to like her family through Desiree. And then she is in this, you know, hoity toity, California liberal, rich people. Like it is I, that's another thing I saw Bennett mentioned in an interview is that she like another, you know, flavor of passing novel that she is exploring here is that it is not set during the Harlem Renaissance, for instance, where like a lot of these stories are set or are from. It's set at the, you know, in 1968. Like purportedly Jim Crow is, is going away now. You know, it's moving into the 70s and 80s. And so the, the notion that a woman would still be passing almost feels like a little outdated not to say that that wasn't a thing that was happening. It, it was and is, but the book is not putting it in the era that I think like, culturally we, we think about when we think about passing.

[Craig]

Yeah, I guess, I mean, like, like you, like you just said, is a thing that has happened at all times for all kinds of reasons. So, you know, just, I, I, I understand what you're saying, but just the.

[Andrew]

Literature, I think is what I'm saying.

[Craig]

Yeah, like it's, it's not set at a time that would like, maximize the, the, like tension.

[Andrew]

Yes, that, and that is a thing inherent to that. Good, good use of the word tension. Because the book, I think that's another thing that the New York Times review is a little frustrated by is if it were more laser focused on the two sisters, you would get just more drama between them. You'd, you'd have them intersect a couple of times over the course of the book and they don't except in memory. Right. And so there isn't, there is a reunion between the two of them at the end of the book, but it's not this like, big firework scene. It's not this culmination of a plot that you've been like, waiting to see resolved. It's just kind of a thing that happens after a series of other things that happen. And, and it's not, it was not uninteresting to me, but it is not kind of conventionally part of a propulsive plot. And it, and it doesn't pay off things as well as I think some people might want it to. The stuff with Stella living in California is really fascinating to me. Because she is this woman who were, like, not really on her side. And now she. The first thing you see her do is protest a black family moving into her neighborhood. And then a few scenes later, she bakes this really weird lumpy cake and, like, brings it to the woman, Loretta, across the street and can't really explain to herself why she's apologizing. The reason she's so upset about Loretta being in her neighborhood. Stella has. Growing up. She passed twice before she made this ultimate decision. Once by accident when she walked into a store and a girl thought she was white. And then once when she went into a museum and was just like, I'm going to walk in here, even though I'm not supposed to. And no one stopped her, but a black security guard winked at her. And she's like, oh, no. Like, other black people know, like, that's. That's her thing. And so she's very nervous about there being a black family in her neighborhood for that specific reason. And all the racist white people in her neighborhood are like, yeah, I agree. We are also racist. And her. Their daughters become friends. And so she spends. Start spending a lot of time over there, but ultimately kind of ruins it by at one point, you know, being mad at her daughter for playing with Loretta's kid. And then her daughter uses a slur, and then it all falls apart. And then the community turns on Loretta and her husband, who is like, I really like this. The Hollywood of it kind of is interesting because he is. He plays a character who's a black cop who's like a. Which is just like a real TV trope of that era where we have these upstanding black cops as, like, Hollywood is like, this is what we can. These are the black roles that we're going to put forward right now. Sure. And he has, like, misgivings about the fact that he has, like, a corny catchphrase about paperwork, but he is happy to provide for his family. You know, that kind of stuff. But the community turns on all of them because she, like, you know, can't handle herself and what she has done and dry. And they drive this family away.

[Craig]

The.

[Andrew]

The, like, closest thing to a propulsive plot of the book comes out of Jude, the book at this point with the daughters to the Times review and a couple other reviews I saw. Like, the thing about the daughters being involved is that I think Bennett does have to do more contrivances than the Stella and Desiree plots.

[Craig]

How do you mean?

[Andrew]

Expect you to have. Yeah, you know, at the end of Jude's whole part of the book where she is a young black woman setting off to California. She's got a track scholarship. She meets her boyfriend, this guy named Rhys, who is a trans man who, you know, I think is in his place in the novel is interesting because he has a different version of shedding a prior identity and, like, coming into an identity that feels more like his own. And the person that he is spending his time with has to kind of navigate this, you know, this person relative to the person they were before. And ultimately, like, their relationship is wonderful and is just like, when Bennett ends the book with them together being joyful. Like, that's her being like, I don't want to write a downer ending. Like, I need these people to have hope.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But Jude's interesting chapter, moving through this community ends with her recognizing Stella. And then, like, that of all. That's a real. Of all the gin joints in the world kind of moment where all of a sudden, at a party across the country, she sees her long lost aunt who is now passing. Passing for white. And then similarly, through the theater community that her drag queen friend Barry is in, finds the do her cousin, now Kennedy, who is Stella's daughter, rebelling by performing in musical theater. And so now she becomes friends with her because she's like, oh, my God, I can learn about my aunt through this girl. And then that boils over into Jude confronting her aunt and then confronting Kennedy with the truth. And it. You just have to accept that, like, the world could be that small for these people or else the emotional parts of the book aren't possible.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But it does not flow as naturally from, you know, oh, Desiree, you know, her sister abandoned her. She wants to know where her sister is. She, you know, starts a life in D.C. and then has to run away from it and move home. And that all kind of has a more natural flow than Jude sees her aunt randomly and then meets her cousin randomly.

[Craig]

Yeah, like, you know, I'm totally with you.

[Andrew]

I gave the book a lot of grace on it, but I could see why someone would be like. Like, this is not what I like about. About.

[Craig]

No, it's. It's. Yeah, like, it. It's what happens anytime the immersion breaks. It's like, you. You do need to say, okay, I am reading a book, and these things are just gonna happen, or else there wouldn't be a book.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Craig]

But you. You read enough stories where that scaffolding is not as visible, and you're like, I. I know that. I know that this can be done better. And so it's a little distracting that it's.

[Andrew]

It's dist. And I would even just say differently. Like, I think there's a version of this book that is a collection of short stories about these characters. And it would be maybe like two thirds as impactful because, like, the themes of identity and the way that identity in this book is created, like, by choice and by secrecy. And I think it's telling that the, you know, the town of Mallard doesn't exist on maps because it's not an incorporated town. It's just a thing that people agree exists is, like, resonant with what identity is in this book. The other thing about, like, all of these people enter into and some of them leave relationships. There's a recurring theme in the book where, starting from Desiree and her husband who is abusive to her, love and pain can exist in the same relationship and that people you love can, can and will hurt you. And that's just kind of part and parcel with what it is to be in a. To know and love someone. And there's different flavors of that throughout the book. Give it. They tie the characters together emotionally, even when the plot is maybe less is not doing that as strongly because, like, there's a version of that with Desiree. There's a version of that with Stella, who is, you know, her husband never learns that she is not white. And when she is with him and intimate with him, she's very aware that if he ever did, she does not trust him to not be violent with her. Right. Jude and Rhys, there's not violence in that relationship, but there is a sense of, like, especially before they can afford Rhys getting top surgery and going through that journey, that, like, they have a lot of rules about their physical intimacy that, you know, Jude has to learn how to. How to navigate to, you know, come keep Rhys emotionally safe. Right. And then Kennedy has all sorts of, like, terrible relationships that she's in. So, like, like, emotionally and thematically, the characters are tied in ways that is more satisfying to me than through, like, the actions of the book.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

And then also, I think just like, stylistically, Bennett is really interested in doing things kind of from an angle, kind of obliquely. An example is, you know, all the things I've said about, like, things that she sets up and then kind of isn't interested in a direct payoff. But also at the end of the book, we have this reunion between Desiree and Stella where, following Jude's revelations and pot stirring, Stella finally goes home. And the first Thing that she does is go back to her mom's house. Her mom, Adele, who has been now suffering from Alzheimer's and is being cared for by early in Desiree. You expect. And Stella expects. And there's a lot of scenes that are like. Like what people expect in this book that don't ultimately happen. She expects her mother to recognize her and shout at her and berate her and scream at her. Her mother, who's suffering from Alzheimer's, just welcomes her, and it's like, oh, Stella's here. Like, has no. Like, does not have. Recollection of her running away. Does not have. And it's this, like. It's an interesting kind of neutering of the tension, both for Stella expecting there to be some sort of awful reunion and of you expecting there to be some kind of dramatic Alzheimer's, like, blow up or something like that.

[Craig]

Sure. Yeah. Is that. Is that, like, is it more satisfying that your expectations were subverted, or are you, like, where's my resolution on this, on the storyline? Like, I.

[Andrew]

It does resolve in a way. So I was kind of into it as a way, because Bennett says a bunch of interviews, like, she's not keen on. She was not keen on punishing or moralizing Stella. So, like, this is a version of her giving Stella an out where, like, one of the people who would really be interested to punish her just can't and isn't interested in it. And so Stella is now left with the feeling of, like, should I be punished for this? And no one is going to do it. Right. Like, that's a. That's a feeling that she carries on in her life, and she chooses to continue passing rather than reconnect with her family. Okay. And to this stylistic point about Bennett being kind of a. An obfuscator or interested in kind of a skewed. The View skuniverse, or what is the.

[Craig]

The View Askew universe?

[Andrew]

Okay, great. Thank you. Jay and Silent Bob were there, is what I'm saying.

[Craig]

Speaking of organic references to things, the.

[Andrew]

Scene in which Desiree and Stella see each other together for the first time in decades is at a diner that Desiree is now running. And the only person in the diner is a homeless man who's passed out in a booth, like, with a sandwich in front of him that Desiree left. And Desiree knows he's passed out. So she's back in the kitchen, and the whole chapter is written as this. Like, there were no witnesses because the only person there didn't see them see each other, didn't see them, you know, with tears in their eyes. Didn't see them hug each other. It's like the. The voice of it is written in this kind of once remove. Did it happen or did it not, Tone? Because Bennett's just kind of interested in that perspective shift, which I think thematically fits with the book, but also structurally fits with, like, why it could. Might be a little frustrating to people.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And that's kind of what I got about the book. You know, there's a lot of interesting, like, good quotes, like when you're. When you meet Rhys, and Rhys is talking about his transition, and he says, like, how real was a person if you could shed her in a thousand miles? Like, he went west and he was Rhys. He wasn't who he was before. There's the relationship between Kennedy and her mom. Secrets were the only language they spoke. There's just a lot of, like, good little lines. Oh, the thing about passing. Okay, here's the line I liked about passing.

[Craig]

Okay, great.

[Andrew]

This is Stella. She'd done one interesting thing in her whole life, but she would spend the rest of her days hiding it. You could never meet one. You could never meet someone who passed over undetected. The same way you'd never know someone who successfully faked her own death. The act could only be successful if no one ever discovered it.

[Craig]

Oh, that's interesting. That's cool.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

I was going to ask if there was anything, like, when Laura commented on your reading the book, if there was anything that she said that she liked about it that you. She did.

[Andrew]

She didn't share with me. It was very rude of her to not elaborate. She had other things that she. To talk about.

[Craig]

She just. So she just was like, hey, I read that one.

[Andrew]

She did basically what she did. She's like, oh, I read that one. I liked it. Okay. But I think, like, this is how.

[Craig]

People can react to things when they don't have to talk about them for an hour with somebody.

[Andrew]

The. I. I would venture a guess, knowing my wife, that yes, right. The book is interested in, if not giving everyone in this book a quote, unquote, happy ending, giving them kind of some space and grace to enjoy the rest of their life in a way. So, like, Desiree and Early, they're never gonna get married, and it's never a problem, but they are gonna be together for the rest of their lives. And early is kind of a. As a young man, he's a migrant. As an adult, he is a bounty hunter who leaves town all the time. And they're just, like, never gonna fully settle down, but they're always gonna be together. That's it. Jude and Rhys wind up good. Jude's gonna be a doctor. Rhys has rediscovered his, like, art, her artistry as a photographer. And they're happy together. And the close of the book is them being able to, like, you know, be themselves with each other. Kennedy and Stella are not in an amazing place at the end of the book. Book. But Stella has, like, embarked on this. Like, she went back to college and she is now teaching, like, Intro to Math, like, Statistics. Like, she has this brain for math that was stifled when she was young. And her. Her mom pulled them both out of school because they needed to get a job. And then, you know, they needed to run away because Desiree thought the town was too small. And there was a. A, A guy making passes at Stella at the place where they were working. And, like. So Stella had this, like, life interrupted where she could have been this, you know, straight A student, and who knows what would have happened? And she's been living this, like, drinking at 11am White woman, rich life that is very empty. And she found something that is not empty. And so, like, Bennett gives her that rather than giving her A. And she also gives her, like, the last scene we see with her. She. Her and Desiree are not on good terms at the end because of the way that Stella reacts to Jude kind of, you know, blowing everything up.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

But the last scene we see of Stella and Kennedy together is them in a car in some bad LA traffic. And Stella is like, okay, you're finally allowed to ask me anything about my life. And I will tell you, as long as you tell no one about it, it. And so are they good? Don't think so. Are they bad? Not necessarily.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Okay. And that's. I think that level of, like, just interest in the. The. These characters is probably what Laura responded to, would be my guess. And it's certainly something that I responded to. So.

[Craig]

Okay, cool.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's. That's it. I don't know. I think you can be interested in this as a book about passing specifically, but I also think, like, if you are interested in novels and other stories where people are like, no, I used to be one person and now I'm this person. This is kind of a. It's not. It's a. It's an interesting meditation on, like, what that would do. The reason the whole second generation is in this book is because it's about the consequences of that choice rather than kind of the, like, plot Fallout of that choice.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah, cool. That's the vanishing half.

[Craig]

Well, thank you for telling me about it.

[Andrew]

I'm glad I didn't vanish over the course. One of us always glad.

[Craig]

I'm always glad of that.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I'm always glad of that.

[Craig]

Well, just the, in the. In the week between shows. That one of us didn't vanish.

[Andrew]

Oh boy.

[Craig]

Would just make things logistically difficult.

[Andrew]

It truly would. I was really scared that for the first few minutes of this podcast. Anyway, that's the book. Thanks for letting me tell you about it, Andrew. I'm glad that I got a chance to read it. Thank you, President Barack Hussein Obama for recommending it to the show. You can send us an email. If you have favorite books from Obama's list that you would like us to read, tell us about them. Overdue [e-mail]. hit us up on social media at Overdue Pod. Nick, Lauren just composed our theme music. Andrew, if folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Craig]

They go to overduepodcast.com. craig, you know this. Duh. They go to overdue podcast.com our Internet website where they can find information about the books that we are reading in the future and the ones that we've read in the past. We're talking about time jumping. Just click some links and you can travel back to the past. Next week we are both reading the invasion Animorphs number one by KA Applegate. Looking forward to this. Have never read a full Animorphs book.

[Andrew]

I think I read this book.

[Craig]

I was always a Goosebumps boy and I was not made of Scholastic book fair money. Like I just couldn't buy everything with like a girl turning into a starfish.

[Andrew]

On the COVID I definitely bought a Animorph as a kid, but you know, I don't know if I'll remember this before I start reading it.

[Craig]

We'll see. We're gonna see. We're gonna find out is what we're gonna do. Also on that website, we have a link to our Patreon page. Patreon.com overdue pod. You can support the show directly and financially. Get an ad free version of the feed. Get access to our Discord community. Get early access to our current long read project which is Sit Me Baby One more time about the Babysitters club. Our episode about book number 14. Hello, Mallory is either a up now or will be up very soon. But that is February's Babysitter's club book. And we, we, we enjoyed it.

[Andrew]

We enjoyed it. We did enjoy it, as we are.

[Craig]

Enjoying the whole series so far.

[Andrew]

We're also. We're doing monthly Q&As. We've got a monthly newsletter and also dusty bookshelves. Dusty bookshelves. Come on in.

[Craig]

Overdue newsletter.

[Andrew]

Yep. And if you. Other things you could do. I don't know if Andrew mentioned. We got links to the books themselves in our bookshop.org page. And if you buy the books on those links, it supports the show, but also could support an independent bookstore near you.

[Craig]

Yeah. And they're doing ebooks now. I don't know any details about it, but get in there. I'm told they're doing ebooks [e-mail] so. Yeah, you get in there and figure out what's the deal and let us know. All right, everybody. Craig, you good?

[Andrew]

I'm great. Go, birds.

[Craig]

We are both gonna. We're gonna be a vanishing hole. W H O L E right now. Until we reappear next week, everybody, please try to be happy. That was a headgum podcast.