This month we are reading and discussing Passing by Nella Larsen. Passing is the second novel Larsen published during the Harlem Renaissance. It was written while she was a librarian at NYPL's 135th Street branch, what we now know as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture! Passing is a powerfully sincere look at shifting racial and sexual boundaries:

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.