Passing

Nella Larsens fascinating exploration of race and identitythe inspiration for the Netflix film directed by Rebecca Hall, starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. This Signet Classics edition of Passing includes an Introduction by Brit Bennett, the bestselling author of The Vanishing Half. Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her pasteven hiding the truth from her racist husband. Clare finds herself drawn to Irenes sense of ease and security with her Black identity and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert herselfand her deceptioninto every part of Irenes stable existence. First published in 1929, Larsens brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to pass, is as timely as ever.