PASSING by Nella Larsen

This novel is an interesting window into New York in the 1920s. It tells the story of two mixed race girls, Clare and Irene, who were friends in childhood. As adults, Clare now ‘passes’ as white. She is married to a white man, and is lonely, so takes the dangerous step of mixing once again with the non-white community. Irene is married to a black man who is a doctor. Their marriage is in trouble, and she begins to suspect that Clare is having an affair with him. She ‘outs’ her old friend to her white husband, and there is a strange interaction at a party, where Clare dies by falling from a window, and it is unclear if her husband kills her, Irene kills her, or she kills herself. It’s an interesting little book, but I’m sorry to report that I read it so long ago I can’t remember much else about it . . .

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