Quicksand and Passing

by Nella Larsen

Overview

Nella Larsen was an important writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance. While she was not prolific her work was powerful and critically acclaimed. Collected here are both of her novels, Passing and Quicksand.

Quicksand, was autobiographical in nature and examined a woman's need for sexual fulfilment balanced against respectability and acceptance amid a deeply religious society. The novel is deeply pessimistic and ends as the protagonist is sucked into a life that is at odds with all that she had desired.

Passing confronts the reality of racial passing. The novel focuses on two childhood friends Clare and Irene, both of whom are light skinned enough to pass as white, who have reconnected with one another after many years apart. Clare has chosen to pass while Irene has embraced her racial heritage and become an important member of her community. The Novel examines how people pass on many different levels and in many different ways. Some forms of passing are perfectly acceptable while others can lead to disaster.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604599923
Publisher:	Wilder Publications
Publication date:	03/04/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	188
Sales rank:	250,523
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Deborah E. McDowell is professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Nellallitea "Nella" Larsen, born Nellie Walker (April 13, 1891 - March 30, 1964), was an American novelist of the Harlem Renaissance. The daughter of Peter Walker, a mulatto Afro-Caribbean immigrant from the West Indies and Marie Walker, née Hansen, a Danish immigrant, Larsen worked as both a nurse and a librarian. Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) were her only novels, although she wrote some short stories. She earned some recognition during her lifetime, but there was a great revival of interest in her work in the latter part of the 20th Century, largely due to the publication of this edition.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Notes on Introduction
Selected Bibliography
A Note on the Texts

Quicksand
Passing

Explanatory Notes

What People are Saying About This

Joyce Carol Oates

This series is an ambitious, exciting, and highly valuable contribution to the reclamation of American women's lost literature.

Alice Walker

Quicksand and Passing are novels I will never forget. They open up a whole world of experience and struggle that seemed to me, when I first read them years ago, absolutely absorbing, fascinating, and indispensable.

Editorial Reviews

A tantalizing mix of moral fable and sensuous colorful narrative, exploring female sexuality and racial solidarity.

Women's Studies International Forum

Discovering Nella Larsen is like finding lost money with no name on it. One can enjoy it with delight and share it without guilt.

Maya Angelou

Quicksand and Passing are novels I will never forget. They open up a whole world of experience and struggle that seemed to me, when I first read them years ago, absolutely absorbing, fascinating, and indispensable.

Alice Walker

Larsen's heroines are complex, restless, figures, whose hungers and frustrations will haunt every sensitive reader. Quicksand and Passing are slender novels with huge themes.

Sarah Waters

A hugely influential and insightful writer.

The New York Times