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The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and The Stories

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This little book represents the complete literary output of Nella Larsen, the great Harlem Renaissance writer. It is impossible to read without the sense of a voice that went quiet too soon. These are sophisticated works, full of issues about anger and identity. In the longer pieces it is frustratingly tangible how great she could have been had she been able to develop a larger body of work.

The pieces included in this work are:

"The Wrong Man" and "Freedom"-- these are two sensational short stories that Larsen published in women's magazines at the beginning of her writing career. If I have a quarrel with this collection, I have a quarrel with the fact that Larson (the editor) chose to put these stories first. While in some ways I understand it, they are so much weaker than the rest of her work that they do not create the right beginning for the book.

"Sanctuary" is a brilliant and powerful short story about a man hiding from the law. This story marked the end of her career, as accusations of plagiarism about the story drove her out of the public eye.

"Quicksand" was her first novel. Clearly drawn from the author's own experience (Larsen was born of a Danish mother and a West Indian father), it tells the story of Helga Crane. Helga constantly resists the idea that her life is defined by the color of her skin, but finds no available options for living any other way. She turns between her black friends in Harlem and her family in Copenhagen, trying to find a way to be herself.

"Passing" is a longer novel which is about two women from the same neighborhood who grew up to take very different routes. One has successfully passed as white, and is married to a white husband. One makes her home in Harlem and marries a black doctor. When they accidentally meet some time later in a different city, their lives once more connect. Irene and Clare are confronted with their own choices when they see what has become of the other woman.

Larsen died in obscurity in 1964, after 34 years of silence. In some respects, her work feels more modern than ever in the way it takes on the complexity of identity and questions notions of both feminism and race. I would suggest buying this edition if you aren't yet familiar with her work. Her output is sadly so slight that it makes sense to buy it all bound in one volume.

Recommended.

This volume contains two novellas, Passing and Quicksand. I would recommend reading the introduction afterwards because it might spoil the stories. The two female protagonists in her stories are loosely autobiographical. Larson's mother was from Denmark and her father was Caribbean or African-American. Both protagonists are bi-racial women living during the Harlem Renaissance period and struggling to fit into segregated society.

I liked Quicksand better. Helga Crane also has a Danish mother and African-American father. As the story opens young Helga Crane is a teacher at a very strict school in an ultra-conservative small southern US city. She is lonely and isolated and far too intelligent for her environment. She finally makes the break and moves to New York City. After a long struggle to fit in she moves to Copenhagen. She is taken in by her mother's family. Instead of finding the love and acceptance she craves she is treated condescendingly like some exotic pet. I don't want to give away the ending, but it's good.

Passing, written by Nella Larson, portrays the thoughts and feelings of a black woman dealing with inter-racial issues during the early twentieth century. The main character Irene Redfield, who has led a semi pleasant life with her husband and child finds herself dealing with issues brought upon by her past childhood friend Claire. Claire creates an intense and unstable environment for Irene and her family throughout most of the story. Towards the end a dramatic and suspenseful moment leaves the reader to create an ending in itself. I enjoyed Passing and found it to be an interesting book in relation to the early Harlem Renaissance years.

If you are like me then all you know about the Harlem Renaissance is Langston Hughes. Well now I know about Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen. While her opening short stories are good they ARE short and last less than five pages each. The bulk of the book is made up of the two novellas Quicksand and Passing. Both are great. Quicksand is about Helga Crane who is struggling to find her identity as a young interracial woman in the early twentieth century. Passing is about the idea and implications of a black woman "passing" as white and how it effects one of her close friends who must keep her secret.
The writing is great and really makes you feel the intense anxiety and confusion of the characters. One great thing about this book is how it handles race. It is a unique viewpoint that is not merely black and white (No pun intended) it shows the subtle and confused feelings of the time about race in American, specifically Harlem. It presents us in a world between emancipation and the Civil Rights Movement where the diverse opinions about how to deal with racial issues were struggling for dominance not only among white Americans but within the black community itself. Add to that the perspective of a black woman and it shows a view from a time in which that very viewpoint was not well represented in politics or in culture.It is a great look into a time passed and comes highly recommended to someone looking for a challenging read.

The two centerpieces of this collection, "Passing" and "Quicksand" are must-reads novels chronicling the struggle of being a african-american living in America in the early 20th century. "Passing" details the multi-faceted struggles light skinned blacks faced in their diverse attempts to "pass" as whites- struggles they faced with white society itself, with their peers- both light and dark skinned- and with themselves. It is a continually evolving story that clearly shows the extreme challenges african americans faced in an obviously racist society.
The equally powrful "Quicksand" concerns itself with one woman's struggle with the ever-changing and wide-ranging attitudes of her african-american peers and her rejection of them, from the appeasing Uncle Tom's to the non-compromising Blacks Only crowd. This is another excellent example of Larsen's ability to show the many nuances and intricacies in the daily struggles and choices blacks had to make in order to survive in white America.
As great as these two stories are, the shorter stories in this collection- most of them under ten pages- are similarly brilliant but in a completely different way. The stories mostly deal with only one simple conflict- a misunderstanding, a decision to lie, a spur of the moment decision- and the implied consequences of each action. The stories provide a brief snapshot of an obviously more complex situation, and do not attempt to fill us in on what happens before or after. Each story is a like amuse bouche- a single bite sized appetizer that contains the flavor of a full meal. Quick and easy, but delicious!