![]() ![]() Stella and Desiree’s struggles are elegantly and inventively echoed in the future challenges encountered by their children. ![]() Indeed, among the novel’s great technical accomplishments are the parallels it draws between characters’ experiences across the decades. With a brisk confidence, the narrative moves between periods, following the twins and their offspring from the 50s to the late 80s. Bennett’s second novel following 2016’s The Mothers largely occupies itself with the consequences of this radical move, which play out through the subsequent generation. Stella soon deserts Desiree, disappearing into a life in which she constructs a new identity and “passes” as white. As they make their perilous way in the Big Easy, their unity is unsettled. Stella is bookish, biddable and somewhat dependent on her twin. The girls are convincingly characterised as polar opposites. ![]() Stella’s lie takes her into a deep and jagged introspection that threatens the life she has so painstakingly built ![]()
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