{"id":62197,"date":"2021-11-11T22:28:02","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T22:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62197"},"modified":"2021-11-11T22:28:03","modified_gmt":"2021-11-11T22:28:03","slug":"passing-the-original-1929-novel-is-disturbingly-brilliant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62197","title":{"rendered":"‘Passing’ \u2014 the original 1929 novel \u2014 is disturbingly brilliant"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Passing’ \u2014 the original 1929 novel \u2014 is disturbingly brilliant<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Book Reviews<\/a>
\nNational Public Radio<\/a>
\n2021-11-10<\/p>\n

Carole V. Bell<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The one thing most people know about Nella Larsen’s Passing<\/em><\/a> is that it explores a peculiar kind of deception \u2014 being born into one marginalized racial category and slipping into another<\/a>, for privilege, security, or power. But the significance of Passing<\/em> isn’t found in the surface facts but in the brilliance of its execution: the beauty of the writing, the close character study, and the intense psychological suspense.<\/p>\n

Like a decades-early precursor to a Patricia Highsmith<\/a> novel, a sense of sensual glamour, frustration and foreboding pervades Larsen’s famed novella<\/a>. In 1927 Chicago<\/a>, two light-skinned Black women, childhood friends whose lives took different paths, meet again in a theoretically white space, and a strange friendship is renewed despite the danger that the connection might bring. For Irene Redfield, a proper Black doctor’s wife and a doyenne<\/a> of Harlem<\/a> society, passing<\/a> is a petty indulgence, something she dabbles in on occasion, for “the sake of convenience.” Her racial dexterity gains her “restaurants, theater tickets, and things like that.” But to beautiful, orphaned Clare Kendry, passing is a means of survival. Clare had a home with her white relatives who disdained her race; she wanted something more, and she grabbed it, making a permanent break…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Passing’ \u2014 the original 1929 novel \u2014 is disturbingly brilliant Book Reviews National Public Radio 2021-11-10 Carole V. Bell The one thing most people know about Nella Larsen’s Passing is that it explores a peculiar kind of deception \u2014 being born into one marginalized racial category and slipping into another, for privilege, security, or power. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,8,6462,20,25],"tags":[32192,2309,87,2833],"class_list":["post-62197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","category-women","tag-carole-v-bell","tag-national-public-radio","tag-nella-larsen","tag-npr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62198,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62197\/revisions\/62198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}