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| somewhere in the apartment |
Just browsed wikipedia where I'm told this book is taught in loads of universities across the country. Hmm, guess my education wasn't as great as I'd thought...oh wait, I already knew that ;)
I used a few lists that I found here and there of novellas in order to eventually come up with a list of 31 titles to read for this month. I'm unsure on which list Passing was on, but am I ever glad I included it.
Ms. Larsen's writing is wonderful and very much places you smack dab in the middle of the Harlem Renaissance. The style is easy and engaging, one of those times where everything comes together to form a great book.
The basic premise is that one of two childhood friends has decided to 'pass' in white society.
Both women are light-colored blacks and while one, Irene, has followed the 'conventional' path and has married a black man, the other one, Clare, has decided to pass herself off as white and marry a white man. This doesn't mean that women who identified as black didn't marry white men and vice-versa as we get to see when we meet another chidhood friend, Gertrude, who has done exactly that. But Clare decided that she wanted to instead 'become' a white woman.
She pops back into Irene's life by pure chance - they accidentally meet in a rooftop hotel bar - and decides to reconnect as she's missed being with those of her own race. When Irene questions her about the danger she's placed herself in by not telling her husband of her race, Clare tells her about her terror when pregnant:
"No, I have no boys and I don't think I'll ever have any. I'm afraid. I nearly died of terror the whole nine months before Margery was born for fear that she might be dark. Thank goodness, she turned out all right. But I'll never risk it again. Never! The strain is simply too--too hellish." pp. 36
Clare's husband, Jack, then meets the women and we're treated to his nickname for his wife: 'Nig'. He clarifies by saying:
"Well, you see, it's like this. When we were first married, she was as white as--as--well as white as a lily. But I declare she's gettin' darker and darker. I tell her if she don't look out, she'll wake up one of these days and find out she's turned into a nigger." pp. 39
Just a charming man.
Well, after hearing this and further horrid things out of Jack's mouth, Irene decides she no longer wants anything to do with Clare. Clare's chosen this life and Irene will in no way give her away, but neither does she want to have to lie - Jack assumed Irene was white - in any way to help Clare out.
Two years later, Irene once again hears from Clare. Clare desperately wants to reconnect with her roots and knowing that Irene and her family live up in Harlem, wants to visit the hot spots with them.
Not too surprisingly, Irene wants nothing to do with this, but eventually relents under Clare's persistent badgering...that and the fact that Clare just shows up at her house uninvited.
"I can't, I can't," she said. "I would if I could, but I can't. You don't know, you can't realize how I want to see Negroes, to be with them again, to talk with them, to hear them laugh." pp. 71
Clare fully immerses herself in the culture that she'd previously tried to escape from, but there are always consequences to living a double life as we soon find out in the shocking climatic conclusion.
But for that you'll just have to read it yourself. It's good. Really good.
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