The Woman Brit Bennett
Wants to Be

“You write for those moments when you surprise yourself,” says Bennett. We are discussing her next book, and all she’ll share on that topic is that the focus will be music. My interest is piqued over that small detail, with the knowledge of what she was able to churn out in her first two novels. The Vanishing Half is her most recent (and soon to be adapted by HBO), and her debut, The Mothers, came out in 2016 to critical acclaim. Covering the fictional lives of complex women in complicated realities, Bennett says: “I am interested in these fraught relationships between mothers and daughters, though my relationship with my mother is very close. It is a dynamic that interests me, because these relationships shape you dramatically, because they show you what type of woman you want or don't want to be.”

At just 30, Bennett is already the woman she wants to be. She is disciplined, direct, and aware of herself. She began The Mothers during her undergrad at Stanford, cooped up in her dorm room and wholly focused on her craft. Her novels, packed with more questions than answers, read as ego-less. Her talent as a storyteller comes through in the narrative arcs, not the minutiae. “I dont think I’m particularly skilled at describing location or space,” says Bennett. “Creating the atmosphere is more important to me than the ornate details.” In both The Mothers and The Vanishing Half, her portrayal of churches, homes, and restaurants grip you—a hometown is described as “jelly, forever molding around your memories,” its wealthy outskirts as “locked behind giant gates like medieval lords building moats.”

Less concerned with the frivolous details of modern life, Bennett leaves herself the mental space to explore questions around human emotion, familial dynamics, interior battles, and the constant struggle to discover individual identity. She gets up every morning, writes, eats, and reads, often unwinding with tv in the evening. “I try to remain free to explore and discover where the story goes,” Bennett says of her writing process.

She doesn’t start stories with an idea of the overall structure, nor does she work off of an outline. She begins only with an idea of what she wants to investigate, and in so doing uses the book as a tool for discovery. For The Vanishing Half Bennett referenced A Chosen Exile by Allyson Hobbs (a history of racial passing) and her mother’s memories as a child in the Jim Crow-era South. It is this emphasis on historical accuracy that adds heft to Bennett’s narratives. It is also Bennett’s refusal to pass judgement on her characters that allows the reader to actively engage. One of the characters in The Vanishing Half chooses to pass as a white woman for most of her life. “I wanted to think about how her decision changes her over time and how this choice trickles down into the life of her daughter and affects her marriage. I wasn't interested in determining whether passing was good or bad,” says Bennett.

With The Mothers, Bennett explicitly tackled the most layered of human relationships—those between a mother and her child. The main character, however, is without a mother for most of it, which allows Bennett to focus on mothering as more of a dynamic versus a biological imperative. “I’ve been divorcing myself from the idea that to be a mother you have to physically carry and birth a child. Anyone can mother,” says Bennett. “It is an act of caring for somebody.”

A lot of bile has risen to the surface this year, which may ultimately be a good thing, as nothing can be resolved if not at first confronted. The conflict we have seen populate our screens and our minds could only be countered by a society-wide awakening that is still unfolding. “I think it's yet to be determined, what anything means,” says Bennett. But one thing that cannot be denied after this year, is how fundamentally interconnected we all are. “Mutual care is one of the only good things that has come out of this year,” says Bennett. “That is something we have realized—in a very horrifying way—through the chains of this virus. It has shown the ways we are connected to people we didn't think we were connected to. These are things that have always been true, but many of us are seeing it for the first time.”

In many ways, what has changed the most in the US since 2019 is our collective awareness. Choice and accountability have become central themes throughout the global and personal dialogues of 2020—these are also central tenets in Bennett’s work. The Vanishing Half allows for meditation around personal choice and its repercussions. “A lot of this narrative was about these two women deciding to go their own ways,” says Bennett. “There is something sad, but also liberating about establishing your own choice.”

Bennett’s development as a writer becomes clear in a back-to-back reading of The Mothers and The Vanishing Half. Her toolbox has expanded, formally, at the very least. “My first book was quite linear and contained in terms of the timeline of the book,” says Bennett. “This book was not linear, and sprawled over decades and years.” In The Vanishing Half, the reader is taken back in time, and forward again countless times. We jump from city to city, and see the same world through many different characters' eyes. “To me it was a story about a fractured family and that fracturedness had to come through in the structure of the book,” Bennett adds.

The fragmented nature of The Vanishing Half’s structure could be taken as a metaphor for this past year. Pieces of our lives have been removed, replaced and ridden over roughshod by the world's changing priorities and possibilities. “One of the biggest lessons of COVID-19 is that control has always been an illusion,” says Bennett. “I don't think I believe in planning anything anymore.” Freeing ourselves from expectations and a desire to be in control is perhaps the only way to cope with the level of uncertainty 2020 has brought. Bennett cites self-compassion as a necessity. “I think this pandemic has been about being more forgiving and judging myself less,” she shares.

“The nature of truth is under attack now,” says Bennett. (A sentiment shared at a different time by one of Bennett’s favorite writers, Toni Morrison.) “The stakes of real life have changed. Going to a restaurant has stakes now.” As the risks of previously mundane activities escalate, our nerves rankle and our patience dwindles. That is where kindness and consideration come into play, for others but mostly for ourselves. A stressed mind is never a clear one, and Bennett, through her exceptional work, has shown what beauty and truth can come from clearing yourself some space.

Camille Okhio is a writer and art and design historian living in New York City.