Passing

Notes From Your Bookseller

A modern classic that gets right to the heart of racial identity and its implications on life. Brilliantly written and subtly layered, this is perfect for readers of The Vanishing Half.

A NETFLIX BOOK CLUB PICK

Nella Larsen’s powerful, thrilling, and tragic tale about the fluidity of racial identity that continues to resonate today. A New York Times Editors’ Choice. Now a major motion picture starring Tessa Thompson and Alexander Skarsgĺrd

Clare Kendry is living on the edge. Light-skinned, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a racist white man unaware of her African American heritage, and has severed all ties to her past after deciding to „pass“ as a white woman. Clare’s childhood friend, Irene Redfield, just as light-skinned, has chosen to remain within the African American community, and is simultaneously allured and repelled by Clare’s risky decision to engage in racial masquerade for personal and societal gain. After frequenting African American-centric gatherings together in Harlem, Clare’s interest in Irene turns into a homoerotic longing for Irene’s black identity that she abandoned and can never embrace again, and she is forced to grapple with her decision to pass for white in a way that is both tragic and telling. This edition features a new introduction by Emily Bernard and notes by Thadious M. Davis.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Editorial Reviews

…Larsen is stealthy, almost laparoscopic in her aim…[Passing is] about ambiguities of all kinds. It culminates in a tragedy that might be an accident, murder or something even more disturbing. And the charged relationship between the women is full of muffled desire…The story-and the horror-uncoil in distinctly feminine spaces, to the music of „spoons striking against frail cups“ and the high, pealing sound of a woman laughing.
– The New York Times – Parul Sehgal

It is a tragic story rooted in inescapable facts of American life: that whiteness conferred an almost universal unearned advantage, and that loyalty to a black racial identity was not only an act of pride but also one of courage.“
– The New York Times
– From the Publisher