The Vanishing Half: Shortlisted for the Women's Prize 2021

She still did this sometimes, talked about Jude’s mother as them.

“We love you,” he said. “We wouldn’t lie to you.” But sometimes lying was an act of love.

“You consider yourself your most fascinating subject.” She’d always thought everyone felt like a lead character onstage, surrounded by sidekicks and villains and love interests.

Because she knew that, if it came down to her word versus Loretta’s, she would always be believed. And knowing this, she felt, for the first time, truly white.

for all Desiree knew, Stella had lived white for half her life now, and maybe acting for that long ceased to be acting altogether. Maybe pretending to be white eventually made it so.

You’d be amazed by how loud the city sounded when you’d decided to be quiet.

Maybe, over time, she would just forget Stella, the way Jude had already started to lose her father’s face. Not all at once, but slowly, her memories disintegrating. Eventually remembering turned into imagining. How slight the difference was between the two.

The hardest part about becoming someone else was deciding to. The rest was only logistics.

“I know,” Jude said. “I just miss you. I worry about you sometimes.” Desiree swallowed. “Well, don’t,” she said. “You out there livin your life. That’s all I want for you. Don’t you worry about me. Mama’ll be all right.”

Here was the backward story: the present and its tedium receding, all those doctor visits, the endless pills, the strange man shining lights in her eyes, the television programs she could never follow, the daughter watching her, rising each time Adele lifted out of her chair, any time Adele tried to go anywhere. She found herself in the strangest p