Passing
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Description
This Signet Classics edition of Passing includes an Introduction by Brit Bennett, the bestselling author of The Vanishing Half.
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past—even hiding the truth from her racist husband.
Clare finds herself drawn to Irene’s sense of ease and security with her Black identity and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert herself—and her deception—into every part of Irene’s stable existence. First published in 1929, Larsen’s brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to “pass,” is as timely as ever.
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Posts
This is not only a book about passing as white and all its implications, it's also about forcing yourself into someones life. I think the biggest theme is dishonesty, in various different ways. For such a short book it is full of moments that hit hard, that show someones secret feelings as well as how they think they need to behave. Clare and Irene are fascinating characters, both flawed in very different ways, with one of the books greatest strengths being how well it lets you into Irenes head.
There’s so much negativity towards white passing people and how they used their light skin to ensure they’re safety, but it has to be jealously and colorism that influences that. They could not choose if they were white passing, and they chose to use that privilege to make sure they wouldn’t be hurt. Yes, it sucks that not everybody has that same privilege, but I’m all for people doing what they need to do to live. Also, the way that fetishization was described was absolutely perfect.
It was, she cried silently, enough to suffer as a woman, an individual, on one's own account, without having to suffer for the race as well. It was a brutality, and undeserved. Took me long enough to read this very short book, but I finally finished it! Classics aren't really my cup of tea, I usually hate the old language and the racist undertones. However, it was about time to read a classic by a Black woman, and I liked it more than I anticipated. It's really thought-provoking but the open end left me unsatisfied. Yet the story was entirely new to me, I didn't know anything about it and I was curious to find out more about Clare and Irene.
Description
This Signet Classics edition of Passing includes an Introduction by Brit Bennett, the bestselling author of The Vanishing Half.
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past—even hiding the truth from her racist husband.
Clare finds herself drawn to Irene’s sense of ease and security with her Black identity and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert herself—and her deception—into every part of Irene’s stable existence. First published in 1929, Larsen’s brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to “pass,” is as timely as ever.
Book Information
Posts
This is not only a book about passing as white and all its implications, it's also about forcing yourself into someones life. I think the biggest theme is dishonesty, in various different ways. For such a short book it is full of moments that hit hard, that show someones secret feelings as well as how they think they need to behave. Clare and Irene are fascinating characters, both flawed in very different ways, with one of the books greatest strengths being how well it lets you into Irenes head.
There’s so much negativity towards white passing people and how they used their light skin to ensure they’re safety, but it has to be jealously and colorism that influences that. They could not choose if they were white passing, and they chose to use that privilege to make sure they wouldn’t be hurt. Yes, it sucks that not everybody has that same privilege, but I’m all for people doing what they need to do to live. Also, the way that fetishization was described was absolutely perfect.
It was, she cried silently, enough to suffer as a woman, an individual, on one's own account, without having to suffer for the race as well. It was a brutality, and undeserved. Took me long enough to read this very short book, but I finally finished it! Classics aren't really my cup of tea, I usually hate the old language and the racist undertones. However, it was about time to read a classic by a Black woman, and I liked it more than I anticipated. It's really thought-provoking but the open end left me unsatisfied. Yet the story was entirely new to me, I didn't know anything about it and I was curious to find out more about Clare and Irene.