num_pages: 141
description: Nella Larsen's fascinating exploration of race and identity--the inspiration for the upcoming Netflix film directed by Rebecca Hall starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga.This Signet Classics edition of Passing includes an Introduction by Brit Bennett the bestselling author of The 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.
language: English
title: Passing
publisher: Signet