3 Book Reviews from Sue Katz: The Vanishing Self, Notes on a Scandal, and The Dream Lover

The following is reprinted with permission from Sue Katz: Consenting Adult.

By Sue Katz
3 Book Reviews

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

This recent novel became an instant best-seller and it is a compelling read indeed. Twin sisters grow up in a small Louisiana town predominated by light-skinned Black people. When the sisters strike out on their own to New Orleans, one sister “accidentally” passes for white and marries her white boss and has a blond daughter, while the other weds an abusive dark-skinned man and births a very dark girl. The divergence in their lives, in their fates, deprived of contact with each other, motors this story.

Bennett’s gorgeous prose provides a path into her subjects of sisterhood, separation, choices, and privilege. Differences around race, class, and gender abound when the daughters meet fortuitously – and figure out their connection. The passing daughter, who hasn’t a clue about her own background, is a spoiled, privileged, obnoxious wannabe actor; the dark daughter is a patient, open-minded, high-achiever who finds love with a transboy.

The Vanishing Half is downright remarkable.

Notes on a Scandal (What Was She Thinking?) by Zoë Heller

Bitter Barbara, a long-time London teacher, lusts after best-friend status with the new art teacher Sheba, as do a number of other teachers at the school. Sheba is more artsy than she is an educator and Barbara bides her time, awaiting the moment that Sheba realizes that it is Barbara who should be by Sheba’s side.

Instead, Sheba falls for a 15-year-old pupil, Steven Connolly, who is a bit of rough, utterly unlike her middle-class husband. Barbara manipulates the situation and becomes Sheba’s only confidant, and then things get crazy.

Notes on a Scandal (2003) is a remarkable page-turner, although it has shades of “The Children’s Hour” and other “sad lesbian” stories. Nowhere is the word lesbian used nor any hint of sexual desire between the women, but the whiff of frustrated mean-spirited obsession infuses all that Barbara does.

A best seller and an award-winner, Notes on a Scandal was made into a film in 2006, starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. But never mind that. The novel is gripping and flows in fast and furious emotion.

The Dream Lover: A Novel of George Sand by Elizabeth Berg

Elizabeth Berg is a prodigious popular writer who has turned out dozens of novels, only a few of which I have as yet read. But The Dream Lover was just exactly what the pandemic called for: a riveting fictionalized account of the multi-layered, free-wheeling literary and love life of the author George Sand. Berg manages to balance her copious writing skills with a story every reader wants to hear to produce this exciting novel.

It wasn’t easy to be a gutsy gender-bender in the 1800s, but Sand managed to combine her daring life of drag and lust with her commitment to writing. To convey the complexities of Sand’s life, Berg chose a complicated first-person double narrative – (1804–1831 and 1831–1876), which merges at the end. There may be a few too many relationships stuffed into this narrative, but a good read is a welcome escape from cooties and wars.

About Sue Katz