A Novel of the Color Line — Delicate, Dangerous, and Unforgettable.

In this audacious new novel, Miss Nella Larsen draws back the curtain on a perilous masquerade played out against the throbbing rhythms of Chicago and the sophisticated glamour of Harlem. It is the story of Clare Kendry, a woman of ivory beauty and reckless spirit, who has severed all ties with her past to cross the color line. Married to a man who unknowingly despises her own race, she lives on the razor-edge of a secret that grants her every luxury, yet denies her the warmth of her own people.

When chance reunites her with Irene Redfield, a childhood friend who has remained steadfast within the fold, a quiet drama is ignited. Drawn irresistibly back to the vibrancy of the world she abandoned, Clare risks shattering the security of two homes to taste the intoxicating warmth of her heritage. With cool, surgical precision, the narrative moves through intimate teas and glittering parties toward a climax as sudden as it is devastating, challenging the reader to question where the true danger lies: in the deception of others, or in the desires of one's own heart.

Miss Larsen, whose previous work Quicksand won the distinguished Harmon Award, writes with an authority born of experience. A former Assistant Superintendent of Nurses at Tuskegee and a librarian in New York, she possesses a rare insight into the psychology of the modern woman. In Passing, she has given us a document of the human soul caught in the tangles of race and class—a story that is at once a tragedy of manners and a triumph of art.