This is a story about whiteness. How an African-American community that is fair-skinned isolates itself from its darker-skinned relatives to maintain lightness. And how Stella isolates herself from her light skin family, particularly her twin Desiree, and disappears in the real white world, living a lie all her life. Through a series of coincidences, Desiree’s daughter, black as tar, meets Stella’s daughter, blonde with violet eyes. And slowly the lies unfold. This book is a gripping and painful story. It shows the weight of coloured skin but also the gradation between these colours, the numerous shades of black, and how discrimination can exist between these also.
“A body could be labeled but a person couldn’t, and the difference between the two depended on that muscle in your chest. That beloved organ, not sentient, not aware, not feeling, just pumping along, keeping you alive.”