Brit Bennett’s “The Vanishing Half” has been out for less than a month, and already the bestseller has a TV adaptation on the way. As Deadline reports, “HBO won a wild auction” featuring 17 bidders, and will pay “low seven-figures” to develop the novel as a limited series. Bennett will executive produce the project.
Published June 2, and one of the buzziest books of the year, “The Vanishing Half” is the story of the Vignes sisters, identical Black twins who run away from home at 16. “Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape,” the novel’s synopsis hints. “The other passes for white, hiding her identity from her husband, who knows nothing of her past. Even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?”
The Penguin Random House title is a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, a Barnes & Noble June Book Club Pick, and an Amazon Best Book of June.
Bennett’s first novel, “The Mothers,” is being developed as a feature film, with Kerry Washington producing. The bestseller sees a young woman, grieving her mother’s suicide, getting pregnant and making a choice that has years-long ramifications for herself, her boyfriend, and her best friend. Bennett’s writing has appeared in Jezebel, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and The Paris Review.
“When I was a kid, I remember hearing people say things — like, dark-skinned women shouldn’t wear red lipstick or you shouldn’t wear bright colors if you’re dark. I remember seeing the movie ‘Imitation of Life’ when I was a child, which is about a white-passing character. It’s also a thing you just pick up on that nobody has to tell you,” Bennett has said. “I was aware of the fact that when I was a child, the biggest black heartthrob was Halle Berry. I was aware of who is considered attractive, who is considered desirable, who’s considered smart. But with this book, I was interested in the idea that colorism isn’t something you observe, but is actually formalized and institutionalized in a place.”
