Fem Book Club – The Vanishing Half
Featuring
- Jess BoyceSee more about Jess Boyce
Nov 17, 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Centre for Stories
Fem Book Club is an introduction to a diverse range of texts by women about women. Through informal conversation about each text we will focus on the manifold experiences of being a woman through different moments in history and across varying communities. It is an opportunity to think about and challenge what it means to be a woman and perhaps undermine any assumed universal experience by looking at how people of colour, transgender and non-binary identifying writers, or those who suffer with mental health issues have vastly different experiences of ‘feminism’ or what it is to be a ‘woman’.
This is a welcoming and safe space. We encourage participation from LGBTI women, men, trans and gender diverse persons and non-binary persons.
During this session of Fem Book Club, we’ll be discussing The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, 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?
Our preferred bookseller is Boffins Books. We value our local booksellers and think they are an important part of the literary community. Boffins stocks a limited number of copies of each Fem Book Club text, so please purchase your copy as soon as possible as we cannot guarantee stock. When purchasing in store, mention our name for 10% off!
The full text list for Fem Book Club 2021 is as follows:
17 March – Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clarke
19 May – Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
21 July – The Color Purple by Alice Walker
15 September – Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
17 November – The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
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Jess Boyce
Collapse BioJess Boyce is a curator, arts worker and artist working on Wadjuk boodja. Working in community arts with Mundaring and Midland Junction Arts Centre, Jess has also been involved in a number of artist-run projects including as a co-founder of Cool Change Contemporary and a co-director of Moana Project Space. Jess graduated from Curtin University in 2014 with First Class Honours Bachelor of Arts.
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