ISBN Passing book English Paperback 176 pages

Nella Larsen’s fascinating exploration of race and identity—the inspiration for the Netflix film directed by Rebecca Hall, starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga.This Signet Classics edition ofPassingincludes an Introduction by Brit Bennett, the bestselling author ofThe Vanishing Half.

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.

NELLA LARSEN (1891-1964) was the author of two novels, Quicksand and Passing, and several short stories. She received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1930 but shortly thereafter she disappeared from the literary scene and later worked as a nurse. Larsen died in New York City…