Passing (Modern Library) - Hardcover

Larsen, Nella

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 037550446X ISBN 13: 9780375504464

Publisher: Modern Library Inc, 2001

Synopsis

First published to critical acclaim in 1929, Passing firmly established Nella Larsen's prominence among women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Passing is a story of two women who cross the color line in 1920s New York - together with a new Introduction by the Obie Award-winning playwright and novelist Ntozake Shange.
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.

About this title

Review:

A work so fine, sensitive, and distinguished that it rises above race categories and becomes that rare object, a good novel. Saturday Review of Literature"

"A work so fine, sensitive, and distinguished that it rises above race categories and becomes that rare object, a good novel." --Saturday Review of Literature

"It is a tragic story rooted in inescapable facts of American life: that whiteness conferred an almost universal unearned advantage, and that loyalty to a black racial identity was not only an act of pride but also one of courage."
- The New York Times

About the Author:

Carla Kaplan is the Davis Distinguished Professor of American Literature at Northeastern University. She is the author of "The Erotics of Talk: Women's Writing and Feminist Paradigms, Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters", and "Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance" (forthcoming). She is also editor of "Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk Tales from the Gulf States" and "Dark Symphony and Other Works by Elizabeth Laura Adams".

About this edition

• Publisher: Modern Library Inc
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 037550446X
• ISBN 13: 9780375504464
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208