Hello. So the last time we talked about a book I’m crazy about, half the fun was missing because none of you got fair warning. Most of the comments were “I really want to read this book now,” not “Here is a nineteen-page essay I wrote about Obinze,” which is what I really wanted from you. I will not make that mistake again.
Currently Nellallitea “Nella” Larsen’s Passing is available for the Kindle for a mere 99 cents. (Larsen only wrote two novels in her lifetime, so you can actually buy both for a still-mere $1.99, but we’re only going to talk about Passing this time; you can also buy a paperback version if you don’t have a Kindle; here is an Indiebound link should you find shopping with Amazon morally troublesome.)
Have you heard of Nella? She’s not as well-known as Zora Neale Hurston, her more famous Harlem Renaissance contemporary, but she’s in the middle of a cultural reevaluation and utterly fascinating. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship for writing in 1930, and spent the last thirty years of her life working as a nurse after she failed to find a publisher for her third novel. According to Marianna Davis, Larsen was “a lonely child…an avid reader of novels and travelogues and a keen observer of life,” which makes her exactly our type of person. Her mother was Danish and her father was West Indian, although she was raised by her Danish stepfather. She did everything. From Wikipedia:
In 1914, Larsen enrolled in the nursing school at New York City’s Lincoln Hospital and Nursing Home. Founded in the nineteenth century in Manhattan as a nursing home to serve blacks, the hospital elements had grown in importance. The total operation had been relocated to a newly constructed campus in the South Bronx. At the time, the nursing home patients were primarily black; the hospital patients were primarily white; the doctors were male and white; and the nurses and nursing students were female and black. As Pinckney writes, “No matter what situation Larsen found herself in, racial irony of one kind or another invariably wrapped itself around her.”
Upon graduating in 1915, Larsen went South to work at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, where she became head nurse at its hospital and training school. While in Tuskegee, she came in contact with Booker T. Washington’s model of education and became disillusioned with it. Added to the poor working conditions for nurses at Tuskegee, Larsen put up with the situation only until 1916.
So Nella moves to New York, graduates from library school, and starts her career as a writer. And she writes Passing. And it’s…intense. It’s about two childhood friends who are both biracial; one of them, Clare, goes on to “pass” as white and marries a racist white man. She later reconnects with Irene, who lives in Harlem and identifies as black, and then everything happens. Race and class and gender and infidelity and identity and female friendships and the subversion of the “tragic mulatto” trope. And you had better believe there is some lesbian subtext. This book is a whole lot of something.
How much time do you charming darlings need to give this book the old once-through with the oculars? Is one week enough time? (It’s not that long.) How long does it take to read a book? Two weeks? You tell me. I am yours to command.
[Image via Wikimedia Commons]
Tags: biracial identity, books, lesbian subtext, nella larsen, passing, the harlem renaissance, women novelists
I really enjoyed reading this book for a class a few years ago, I’m betting it’ll be even better when I’m reading it for pleasure.
(Now I have a good reason to stop reading Gone Girl. Apologies to everyone.)
Edit: Oh, uh, a week should be good? My copy is 122 pages, explanatory notes included.
I was just thinking the same thing but instead of Gone Girl I’ll happily be quitting How the Irish Saved Civilization. A book I purchased before I had a smartphone to look up book reviews when impulse buying at the used bookstore.
I am going to read this right now! So, um, give me a week?
The Toast The Toast you are my FAVORITE this is the book that caused me to become an English major THANK YOU
If I click through to the Amazon Kindle page and buy the book there, rather than seeing if I can get it from my library, will The Toast get a referral kickback?
(Please say yes.)
(my eyes tend to cross after the first part of amazon links, so i just don’t know for sure)
I BELIEVE SO, yes. Wait, am I allowed to say that? Nicole? Am I allowed??
I know it’s pretty common these days, but some sites explicitly don’t do it, or flag when they do, so I thought I’d check. I want to make sure I click through instead of going directly via my browser if you guys get something from it! 😀
(If not, I might go through my list of bloggers that I know have the referral system so that my purchase adds to someone else’s coffers too. I figure if I’m going to be using Amazon, I can at least try to use it to help people I like?)
Ah! YES. I’ve only read Quicksand and should obviously read Passing. I don’t have a Kindle so I will have to get it from the library, which I should be able to do this weekend. Sooo maybe a week to read it?
Both Passing and Quicksand are short and fantastic. FANTASTIC. I can’t wait for this discussion with you amazing people.
It is now mine! A week sounds excellent.
She is one of my all-time favorite authors. I actually like Quicksand even better than passing– it covers such a variety of racial and feminist themes. The main character is rejected by black Americans because of her light skin, is a victim of prejudice by white Americans because of her black heritage, and is treated like an exotic entertainment by condescending white people in Europe. The book also has one of the most haunting descriptions of pregnancy and childbirth I have ever read.
Also, for those of us with non-Kindle ereaders, there is an ePub link here.
Bless you.
I’m pretty sure there is a free .mobi Kindle link there, too, because the book is in the public domain.
Okay, so we’ll all convene back here next Thursday for a ROUSING CONVERSATION.
Am I the only person for whom indiebound never loads? Anyone else ever have problems with that? That said, looking forward to (finally) reading this.
Passing is fantastic! (It was actually required reading for my college LGBTQ studies class.) It will make you want to google everything about really tragic Rhinelander case mentioned in there.
I loved this book. I wish I had time to love and read it again. Still working on Americanah. Slow down! It’s all about me.
I read this forever ago, and the only thing I remember is the window scene. Oh my lord.
I’m IN! Next Thursday 🙂 Pretty sure even I can manage to read it by then!
mildly devastated that this is the only thing in the lesbian subtext archive tbh
O ye of little faith. Trust in Her and She will deliver.
That tag’s not staying empty for long.
Yessss, I’m in! The Toast is rapidly becoming _the_ place I find new reading. I’m halfway through Cassandra at the Wedding, and have Sherman Alexie on my list for after Passing. Thanks folks.
Ahhh I studied this book in my first year of uni and LOVED IT. Might have to go back and re-read… I wrote an essay that I thought was really deep about it, it was all about mirrors and misinterpreted Lacan. Memories!
I just finished Americanah today. Then downloaded Not Quite a Husband on the strength of another Toast recommendation. Now this? Were am I supposed to find the time to write this Obinze essay? Professor? Can I have an extension?
I just finished Americanah today. Then downloaded Not Quite a Husband on the strength of another Toast recommendation. Now this? Were am I supposed to find the time to write this Obinze essay? Professor? Can I have an extension?
I just checked Passing out of the library yesterday (in the same book as Quicksand- score!) and bless its heart, the library’s had it for three years and I’m the first person to check it out! That’s lame. Anyway, I started today and it is fantastic so far. I started reading it on the train and have had a couple hours of good reading time, but I’m already halfway through it and expect to finish tonight. There’s still time to get a copy and read it before the great Toast hashing occurs!
OK I got Nella Larsen’s complete works for my kindle, and I just read Passing in about… oh, three hours altogether, and I am now in a situation where I cannot deal with this book. It is my intention to move right on to Quicksand and the short stories and then possibly to go back in time and convince her to write more books.
I feel that strongly about this book.
Writing-wise she reminds me of Katherine Mansfield, that’s all I’ve come up with so far that isn’t based just on emotion.
(I really like this book)