Passing

First published to critical acclaim in 1929, Nella Larsen's Passing firmly established the author's prominence among women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. It has been reissued 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.