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Early
Loretta Walker is a Black woman who moves into a large house in Stella’s wealthy neighborhood in Los Angeles. She and her husband, Reginald, are the first Black people to live in the neighborhood, and their presence disturbs the racist community. Even Stella (or perhaps especially Stella) tries to argue against allowing a Black family into the neighborhood, but she ultimately has no power to stop Loretta, Reginald, and their daughter from moving in. To her own surprise, she develops a strained friendship with Loretta, who never wanted to move to the neighborhood in the first place but did so to satisfy her husband. Stella sees Loretta as someone with whom she can actually connect, though Loretta has no idea that Stella is Black. Soon, though, the neighbors start talking about seeing Stella sneak over to the Walkers’ house, causing trouble for Stella because she has been hiding her friendship with Loretta from Blake. But their friendship comes to an abrupt end anyway, since Kennedy calls Loretta’s daughter the n-word and says she won’t play with Black people. Loretta intuits that Kennedy picked up these racist views from Stella and Blake, so she cuts ties with Stella. Shortly thereafter, Stella tells a made-up story to her white neighbors about Reginald looking at her in a sexual way. Several days later, white residents start throwing bricks through the Walkers’ windows and generally vandalizing their property. It doesn’t take long for the family to move away, leaving Stella with a feeling of guilt and regret.
Loretta Walker Quotes in The Vanishing Half
The The Vanishing Half quotes below are all either spoken by Loretta Walker or refer to Loretta Walker. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
She’d moved to Los Angeles for Blake’s job and sometimes she felt like she’d had no say in the matter. Other times, she remembered how thrilling the possibility of Los Angeles had seemed, all those miles between there and her old life. Foolish to pretend that she hadn’t chosen this city. She wasn’t some little tugboat, drifting along with the tide. She had created herself. Since the morning she’d walked out of the Maison Blanche building a white girl, she had decided everything.
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She couldn’t share any memory of her youth without also conjuring Desiree; all of her memories were cleaved in half, her sister excised right out of them, and how lonely they seemed now, Stella swimming by herself at the river, wandering through sugarcane fields, running breathlessly from a goose chasing her down the road.
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Chapter 9
Quotes
“I’m not one of them,” she would say. “I’m like you.”
“You’re colored,” Loretta would say. Not a question, but a statement of blunt fact. Stella would tell her because the woman was leaving; in hours, she’d vanish from this apart of the city and Stella’s life forever. She’d tell her because, in spite of everything, Loretta was her only friend in the world. Because she knew that, if it came down to her word versus Loretta’s, she would always be believed. And knowing this, she felt, for the first time, truly white.
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Loretta Walker Quotes in The Vanishing Half
The The Vanishing Half quotes below are all either spoken by Loretta Walker or refer to Loretta Walker. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
She’d moved to Los Angeles for Blake’s job and sometimes she felt like she’d had no say in the matter. Other times, she remembered how thrilling the possibility of Los Angeles had seemed, all those miles between there and her old life. Foolish to pretend that she hadn’t chosen this city. She wasn’t some little tugboat, drifting along with the tide. She had created herself. Since the morning she’d walked out of the Maison Blanche building a white girl, she had decided everything.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
She couldn’t share any memory of her youth without also conjuring Desiree; all of her memories were cleaved in half, her sister excised right out of them, and how lonely they seemed now, Stella swimming by herself at the river, wandering through sugarcane fields, running breathlessly from a goose chasing her down the road.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9
Quotes
“I’m not one of them,” she would say. “I’m like you.”
“You’re colored,” Loretta would say. Not a question, but a statement of blunt fact. Stella would tell her because the woman was leaving; in hours, she’d vanish from this apart of the city and Stella’s life forever. She’d tell her because, in spite of everything, Loretta was her only friend in the world. Because she knew that, if it came down to her word versus Loretta’s, she would always be believed. And knowing this, she felt, for the first time, truly white.
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