Harlem Renaissance, published in 1929, unreliable narrator, stream of consciousness, that direct and indirect speech vibe…

This felt like Mrs. Dalloway. Except about race.

Because the titular “Passing” referred to a Black person passing as white in segregated America. Specifically, one woman who passed as white occasionally for convenience (to get a seat on a train, to get served at a restaurant) having her life railroaded by a woman who permanently passed as white (and even had an extremely anti-Black racist husband who thought she was white 😬).

This book was pretty shocking, actually. And it was a good reminder to me that people in the past weren’t any less transgressive. I don’t know why I thought a 1929 publication date would mean this book wouldn’t be very taboo, but I was definitely wrong.

It took me a while to figure out why it was a four star and not a five star for me (because it was extremely well written) and I think it’s this: it was ambiguous. An unreliable narrator, likably unlikable characters, more questions than answers… when I think what I was craving was certainty. So it was just a mood mismatch, for me.