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The Vanishing Half is a multi-generational, multi-geographic novel that moves fluidly between the past and the present, from the 1950s to the late 1990s, and from the small, light-skinned-obsessed town of Mallard to New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, New York, and Minneapolis.
The novel begins in April 1968 with Desiree Vignes returns to Mallard after fourteen years away. She arrives with her daughter, a dark-skinned Black girl named Jude. The first part of the novel details the events that led Desiree and her twin sister Stella to leave Mallard in August 1954, their separation in New Orleans, and why Desiree left her abusive husband, Sam Winston, in D.C. to return to Mallard. Back in Mallard and living with her mother Adele, Desiree gets a job at Lou’s Egg House and is reunited with a past lover named Early Jones. Early, a bounty hunter hired by Desiree’s husband to find her, reveals the truth to Desiree and they begin a relationship.
The second part of the novel takes place ten years later and follows Desiree’s daughter, Jude, in Los Angeles where she attends UCLA on a track scholarship. At a Halloween party, Jude meets an aspiring photographer and trans man named Reese. That summer, Jude moves in with Reese and develops feelings for him, but has difficulty articulating them. One night after making a comment about Reese’s chest bandages, Reese lashes out at Jude. Their friend Barry, a drag performer who performs under the name Bianca, gives Jude a place to stay for the night. That evening, Reese appears at Barry’s apartment and apologizes to Jude. They finally express their feelings for one another and kiss. To help Reese pay for breast removal surgery, Jude gets a second job as a caterer. While working a catering job in Beverley Hills, Jude drops a wine bottle onto an expensive carpet after seeing someone who looks like her mother’s twin sister, Stella.
Part Three of the novel returns to 1968, but this time from the perspective of Stella, who is now Stella Sanders. Stella began passing as white in New Orleans and met her husband, Blake Sanders, while working as his secretary. Stella attends a neighborhood meeting where she vocally speaks out against Black people moving into their neighborhood. Despite the complaints of their white neighbors, Reginald and Loretta Walker, with their daughter Cindy, move into the neighborhood. Stella maintains her distance from them until she spots her daughter Kennedy playing with Cindy. Stella rushes out of her home and snatches Kennedy from the street.
That evening, Loretta stops by Stella’s home to return the doll that Kennedy left when Stella grabbed her. Feeling guilty, Stella makes Loretta a lemon cake and apologizes. The two become friends, but Stella lies about her friendship to Blake and to the rest of the neighbors. Though they become close friends, Stella does not invite Loretta and her family to their neighborhood Christmas party. The day after Christmas, while playing with Cindy, Kennedy calls Cindy a racial slur. As a result, Loretta tells Stella to keep away from her and her daughter. Weeks and months later, the Walkers face constant harassment from the neighborhood before deciding to leave. Stella does not speak to Loretta again.
Part Four begins in the fall of 1982. Jude, still with Reese, works at a Korean Restaurant while she waits to for a medical school acceptance. Since the night of the party in Beverly Hills, Jude has not stopped thinking about the woman who looked like Stella. In November 1982, Barry invites Reese and Jude to attend a show he’s in called The Midnight Marauders. The lead in the play—a blonde-haired, violet-eyed girl—catches Jude’s eye, and remembers seeing her at the party where she thinks she saw Stella. After the show, Jude learns that the girl is named Kennedy, and that her mother’s maiden name is Stella Vignes. Jude does not tell Kennedy that they are cousins. Instead, she gets a job at the theater and becomes Kennedy’s unofficial assistant in the hopes that Stella will appear at one of Kennedy’s performances.
Stella becomes an instructor of statistics at Santa Monica Community College, much to Blake’s chagrin. She is upset that Kennedy has taken time off from university to pursue acting. On the last night of The Midnight Marauders in December, Stella finally appears. During intermission, Jude confronts Stella. Stella is incredulous that Jude could be related to her or Desiree because Jude is so dark-skinned, but Stella starts to believe her when Jude shares intimate details about Stella and Desiree’s lives. When Jude suggests that Stella call Desiree, Stella runs away.
At the cast party for the show, Kennedy, upset that Stella did not show up, gets drunk and complains to Jude. When Jude refuses to keep her company any further, Kennedy makes a snide comment about how lucky Jude is to be with Reese, considering how dark-skinned she is. In retaliation, Jude reveals to Kennedy the truth about her mother. When Kennedy approaches Stella with the information, Stella lies, saying that it must be a prank or someone trying to blackmail them for money. Blake and Stella tell Kennedy to forget about the whole event. In June, Blake and Stella rent an apartment for Kennedy to help her while she auditions for roles. While moving in, Kennedy once again asks about her mother’s past only to be shut down.
Part Five of the novel begins in 1988 with Kennedy getting her big break as Charity Harris on the soap opera Pacific Cove. In a flashback, a young Kennedy bothers Stella while she bakes a cake. Kennedy asks about Stella’s past, her grandmother, and where she grew up. When Stella says she is from Opelousas, Kennedy swears that her mother had said she was from a town that started with the letter M. For years Kennedy would search for the name of the town, only for it to be confirmed during the cast party for The Midnight Marauders when Jude mentioned Mallard.
The novel then shifts to 1985 in New York where Kennedy lives in a basement apartment with her Haitian-born boyfriend Frantz. After landing a role that winter in an off-off-Broadway musical, Kennedy obsesses over her health to the point where she conserves her voice until a performance. One day, Kennedy is shocked when Jude walks into the café where she is a barista. Kennedy does not speak. Jude hands her a paper with her contact information. The following morning, Kennedy calls the hotel that Jude is staying at and learns that Jude is now attending medical school in Minneapolis and currently in New York accompanying Reese as he gets surgery. Jude says that she has something important to show Kennedy and they plan to meet after Kennedy’s performance that evening.
While at a local dive bar after Kennedy’s show, Jude hands Kennedy a picture of Stella and Desiree as children with their grandmother. The next day, Kennedy stays with Jude as she waits for Reese to be released from surgery. Kennedy learns that the picture was taken at the funeral of their mothers’ father, learns why Desiree returned to Mallard, and learns about their grandmother’s decaying memory. After the hospital releases Reese, Kennedy helps Jude take him back up to their hotel room. As she leaves, she learns about Mallard, a place where she would fit in because of her light skin. When Kennedy returns to Frantz that evening, she realizes that their relationship is over.
After leaving New York, Kennedy returns to California briefly. One day lounging by the pool with Stella, Kennedy confronts her with the picture of Stella and Desiree. Kennedy’s attempt to learn more about her mother is once again shut down. After this, Kennedy spends time in Europe, traveling to different countries and inventing and reinventing herself wherever she goes. In 1996, Kennedy decides to become a real estate agent, as her acting career has dried up, and she excels.
In Part Six, Stella returns to Mallard in 1986 with the intention of getting Desiree to tell Jude to stop contacting Kennedy. After staring at a map at the Opelousas train station, Stella is surprised to learn that Mallard is no longer called Mallard, but is now a part of Palmetto. As Stella makes her way back to what was once Mallard, the novel details how life has changed for Desiree, Early, and Adele.
When we return to the present day, Early and Adele are returning home from a fishing trip when Early spots a white woman on the porch. He worries at first that she is a government worker, but Adele calls out to Stella to help them clean the fish for dinner. Stella visits Desiree at the diner and begs Desiree for forgiveness. After dinner that evening, Stella and Desiree drink gin on the porch and share stories of their lives. Desiree learns that Jude had kept her encounter with Stella a secret for all these years. Stella remarks that this is a sign of Desiree being a good mother, whereas Stella has been lying to Kennedy her whole life. Desiree holds a sobbing Stella. In the morning, Stella gives Early her wedding ring at the airport to help pay for Adele’s medical bills and other expenses.
A month later, Stella hears from Kennedy after not having heard from her in months and picks her up at the airport. When Kennedy asks about her wedding ring, Stella tells the truth and says she gave it to Desiree. On the ride back home, Stella tells Kennedy that she can ask her whatever she wants about her life.
In the final chapter, Jude receives a call from Desiree informing her of Adele’s passing. That afternoon, Jude calls Kennedy to inform her of the news and wonders if Stella might want to know. Kennedy explains that Stella would not. That evening, Reese agrees to fly down to Mallard with Jude for the funeral. The morning of the funeral, Desiree teases Reese about marrying Jude. After Adele is buried, instead of going to the repast, Jude and Reese sneak away to a local river in the woods. They undress and hold each other in the water, floating to the sway of the river, hoping it will wash away their past.
