Book Recommendations: June

Fiction

The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett

I had been meaning to read this book for such a long time, and this month I finally treated myself to it. And it was worth it.

It was so fascinating on so many levels, as well as being beautifully written. The premise of the book is that it follows twins Stella and Desiree, who ran away from their hometown as teenagers. The first section of the book, which I found slightly hard to get into, follows their escape from the town. But then it just gets so good.

It’s revealed that the twins actually split up a few years after escaping and haven’t seen each other since.

First, the narrative focuses on Desiree, who has had a child with a dark-skinned man. This daughter, called Jude, is the focus of a significant portion of the narrative, and I love her story. It is a story of not fitting in, but also of love and connection. Jude’s boyfriend Reese is a trans man. But he is never named as such – his transness is described in such a beautifully nonchalant and taken-for-granted way that I have never seen in a work of literature before. I hope this portrayal paves the way for normalised, yet sensitive, depictions of trans characters in years to come.

Then we find Stella, who since leaving Desiree aged 18 has spent her life passing as white: marrying a white man, living in a white neighbourhood, and even having a white child (though Bennett does describe Stella’s fear while pregnant that the baby would expose her).

I won’t give anything else away, but this book was such a fascinating exploration of race, class, gender, and humanity in the US, spanning multiple decades (from the 1950s to the 1990s) and weaving together multiple generations’ stories. It contains many beautiful metaphors, as well as clever references to historical tropes of African American literature and racial theory (some of which I’m familiar with because of a brief stint studying the literature of the Harlem Renaissance).

The Humans, Matt Haig

Both humorous and tear-jerking, The Humans is just a great read. It’s written from the perspective of an nameless alien sent to earth to destroy knowledge of a maths formula, disguised as the male maths professor who recently solved the formula. This alien-ness allows Matt Haig to ponder the contradictions and nonsensicalness of many of society’s cultural norms. It’s full of sharp humour in this respect.

But alongside its satire is a highly sensitive side; as the alien becomes more used to life on earth (and by extension its little nonsensical quirks) he also notices the things that make humans so special. I loved this idea behind this book and I thought it was well-executed and creative in its approach.

Capital, John Lanchester

Part mystery, part social commentary/realist drama. Capital felt almost like an anthology, an example of one of the longer, character-based books that I occasionally love to get stuck into. It centres around lots of different people that live on the same road in London, all of whom start to receive increasingly threatening communications, starting with postcards saying ‘we want want you have’ and escalating from there.

The mystery of who is sending the postcards does eventually reveal itself (and I’m quite proud that I partly guessed who it was). But this takes a back seat for the majority of the narrative, and not even in a bad way. I loved the snapshot-like feel to the narrative, each chapter giving me a peek into a different part of someone’s life.

Lanchester highlights and celebrates the diversity of backgrounds and stories even just in a single street of the nation’s capital. I loved feeling like I was stepping into someone else’s house, or even their mind, at the start of each chapter. And, of course, this all added to the satisfying feeling of reading some of the narrative threads coming together as the novel went on.

Other Fiction I Enjoyed This Month

• Animals, Emma Jane Unsworth – A chaotic, hangover-laced depiction of a pair Mancunian friends in their late 20s. A testament to the highs and lows of close female friendship.

• The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley – An Agatha-Christie-esque mystery that revolves around a tumultuous group of old university friends as they go away to the middle of nowhere to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

• Washington Black, Esi Edugyan – An endearing narrative that follows the life of George Washington Black, a boy who is born into slavery in Barbados, but at the age of 10 goes on to assist his master’s abolitionist brother in the creation of a flying vehicle. Set across Barbados, the Arctic, Morocco, and London in the 19th century.

• Cilka’s Journey, Heather Morris – The sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz, following the incredible story of Cilka, who was imprisoned in a Siberian prison camp for ‘sleeping with the enemy’ upon being released from Auscwitz. Perhaps ever so slightly less harrowing than the first book, but no less astounding and inspirational.

Non-Fiction

Natives, Akala

This was another long-awaited read that I treated myself to this month. I’m always conscious of reading a disproportionate amount of books about race in America, so that I’m relatively unprepared for discussions of race in this country. Of course the two are closely linked, but America’s documenting of its race relations threatens to be all-encompassing if you don’t go out of your way to pick out works by British writers (there are plenty out there if you look hard enough).

And so I read Natives by Akala, who is a British rapper, entrepreneur, and writer (and the younger brother of Ms. Dynamite). The title of this book hooked me in because I am fascinated (if also slightly disturbed) by the relationship between British ‘native’ whiteness and nationalism, and the legacy of the British empire.

Akala’s writing swings back and forth between personal anecdotes and global political history – plus everything in between. I learned about how the British education system fails young black boys, both those who excel and those who fall behind. Akala also offers valuable first-hand insight, as both a victim and a perpetrator, on so-called ‘black-on-black’ violence, challenging many misconceptions.

This book was specifically British, but it was also so much more than that. I learned about Jamaica, China, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, India, Ireland, Cuba, and more – all in the context of Britain’s historical and continuing imperialism, but also looking beyond that at the interconnectedness of ideas of race and power around the globe.

Whites, Otegha Uwagba

A scathing, poignant, eloquent long-form essay (just 70 pages) written in note form over many years, but put together as an essay last year in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. It was interesting to read this after Derek Chauvin’s recent sentencing for this crime, with the slight comfort of hindsight but also the stark awareness that we are nowhere near solving the issues that became of mainstream concern last year.

Whites critiques the pandering to whiteness done by many black writers in their aesthetically-pleasing ‘how to be an ally’ works, which there was a boom of last year. And yet at the same time, she proves that writing about race can be accessible while not for a second pandering to white sensitivities and white guilt. Indeed, I was uncomfortable reading parts of this. But so I should be.

Uwagba confronts how it is not just those overtly ‘racist’ individuals who stunt progress, but also those who consider themselves ‘anti-racist’. She emphasises that reading, posting, and talking (while useful) aren't enough, that many white people are willing to be anti-racist only up until they are required to actually take action, to risk something that they have for the cause, whether that be a relationship with a friend or a family member, or their reputation at work. I think she's right, as hard as it is to recognise that as a white person that indeed considers themselves anti-racist. It's a rousing call to do better, and something that I think all white people should read.