Passing
Ratings51
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings51
Average rating3.8
First published to critical acclaim in 1929, Passing firmly established Nella Larsen's prominence among women writers of the Harlem Renaissance.
Irene Redfield, the novel's protagonist, is a woman with an enviable life. She and her husband, Brian, a prominent physician, share a comfortable Harlem town house with their sons. Her work arranging charity balls that gather Harlem's elite creates a sense of purpose and respectability for Irene. But her hold on this world begins to slip the day she encounters Clare Kendry, a childhood friend with whom she had lost touch. Clare—light-skinned, beautiful, and charming—tells Irene how, after her father's death, she left behind the black neighborhood of her adolescence and began passing for white, hiding her true identity from everyone, including her racist husband. As Clare begins inserting herself into Irene's life, Irene is thrown into a panic, terrified of the consequences of Clare's dangerous behavior. And when Clare witnesses the vibrancy and energy of the community she left behind, her burning desire to come back threatens to shatter her careful deception.
Reviews with the most likes.
(This took me much longer to read than it should have, through no fault of the books.) This was a really good glimpse into the ways black people passed as white in the 1920s. We meet three women at various points who either pass or don't, some of whom are married to white men, with all that may entail. This was really good and I did not see that ending coming.
I found this book because I'm participating in the 52 Book Challenge. I was looking for a book to satisfy the prompt: Takes Place During the Roaring Twenties. This one afforded me the added opportunity to discover a new to me author of color. This book was riveting. Written in the late 1920s, published in 1929- It feels positively timeless. I have never read a book about women passing- fair skinned “colored” women as they're called here- passing as white in society.
It was short but thoroughly fleshed out. Toward the end I was physically stressed out, reading quickly to figure out who was going to end up happy and who was going to end up exposed. This was a great, original story. Loved it. And loved discovering Nella Larsen- a trailblazer of the Harlem Renaissance.
Une histoire extrêmement prenante entre deux femmes prises dans le racisme de l'Amérique des années 20. J'ai eu du mal à comprendre tout le cheminement de pensée de la narratrice, mais j'ai littéralement dévoré les pages. La fin est profondément marquante, posant énormément de questions et laissant le lecteur dans l'interrogation.
