The author of The Mothers brings fresh sensitivity to the subject of African Americans ‘passing’ in this engrossing novel Mallard, a fictional town in Louisiana, is a liminal “third place”. Established in 1848, it is inhabited by light-skinned African Americans “who would never be white but refused to be treated like Negroes”. In 1938 it’s the birthplace of “creamy skinned, hazel eyed” identical twins, Stella and Desiree Vignes. Throughout the opening of this epic novel, Brit Bennett presents the townsfolk as protective of Mallard’s unique constituency. Those within the community marry to maintain the lightness of bloodlines and to ensure that “the darkest ones [are] no swarthier than a Greek”. With a judicious hand, Bennett outlines how this regulating of racial purity comes with no small measure of emotional cruelty. This, and the wider conservatism and privations of provincial life, encourages the twins to run away to the relative freedoms of 1950s New Orleans. Continue reading...
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