The girls leave their tiny hometown of Mallard aged sixteen, and from that point onwards their lives diverge. They are African-American, but comparatively light-skinned - a fact that becomes crucial to the plot. "We could not take the risk.'The Vanishing Half' is about identical twins Desiree and Stella Vignes.
Belle was cut off from her beloved extended family in DC: "Once Mama made the decision that we would live as white," she says. Paying a price for a new lifeīut as Benedict and Murray show, there was a terrible cost to maintaining that façade. As the literal face of the library, Belle became a power in her own right, courted by art dealers, embraced by the socially powerful, profiled as an elegant careerist at a time when working women were rare. And indeed, the Morgan Library became known as a private collection of rare books, manuscripts and art that competed with esteemed public institutions such as the British Museum.
Belle could provide an important missing link: context. He knew that under her astute eye his collection would be more than an assortment of rarities only one of the world's richest men could acquire. Passing as white causes a family splitīelle became a power in her own right, courted by art dealers, embraced by the socially powerful, profiled as an elegant careerist at a time when working women were rare.Īs the two began to work closely together, Morgan came to trust Belle's vision and expertise. As the personal librarian to financier J.P.Morgan, she pursued and curated a collection of rare books, manuscripts and art that became world-renowned. Their heroine, Belle Da Costa Greene, was one of the most prominent career women of her time. I wouldn't be me.Īnd that, basically, is at the crux of The Personal Librarian, a new novel by Heather Terrell (writing as Marie Benedict) and Victoria Christopher Murray.
At several points in childhood and as an adult, I've loved the notion of being rich, but being white? I cannot imagine it. "Deep down, all Black people want to be white." I heard that in a social psychology class, repeated as if it were a truism. From Nella Larsen's 1929 classic, Passing, to the original Imitation of Life (the 1934 movie starred the incomparable Fredi Washington as Peola, the little girl who wanted to be white) to Britt Bennett's 2020 novel The Vanishing Half, the notion of a Black person posing as white to escape her Blackness just felt. I have a confession: I am not a fan of the passing trope.
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