Quicksand

Written by Nella Larsen

Narrated by Christine Glassman

Nella Larsen's first novel tells the story of Helga Crane, a fictional character loosely based on Larsen's own early life. Crane is the lovely and refined daughter of a Danish mother and a West Indian black father who abandons Helga and her mother soon after Helga is born. Unable to feel comfortable with any of her white-skinned relatives, Helga lives in various places in America and visits Denmark in search of people among whom she feels at home. The work is a superb psychological study of a complicated and appealing woman, Helga Crane, who, like Larsen herself, is the product of a liaison between a black man and a white woman. In one sense, Quicksand might be called an odyssey; however, instead of overcoming a series of obstacles and finally arriving at her native land, Larsen's protagonist has a series of adventures, each of which ends in disappointment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HN Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781509494163

Nella Larsen

Nella Larsen was born in Chicago in 1893 of a Danish mother and a West Indian father. She began writing during the Harlem Renaissance, a period during which black artists, writers, and musicians were prominent in the New York art scene. The success of Quicksand and Passing made Nella Larsen one of the most fêted woman writers of her generation. She died in 1963 in obscurity. Now her 'lost' work is being rediscovered and celebrated.

Reviews for Quicksand

[Adriana Rivas · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The narrator mispronounces a lot of words and sometimes she says a completely wrong word that isn't in the original text. At one point she said "carefulness" instead of "carelessness," which has the opposite meaning of what the author intended in that line. She also said "lass" instead of "kiss" several times, "wash" instead of "wish," which would have been confusing had I not been reading along. Her tone/ emphasis isn't great, especially when she reads dialogue, making for a pretty dull listening experience.

[Sharon Czudak · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting and educational read. Hard to like the main character though and hard to understand her choices. Like most of us, she was her own worst enemy but who can understand another's motivation?

[Lizzie · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The narrator of this is awful! She puts emphasis at all the wrong points in sentences. What a shame after the narrator of Passing by Nella Larson was so good! I struggled through the 1st few chapters of this narrator before switching to listening to it for free on the Librivox app.

[alparra87 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't love it... perhaps because I recently read another novel that feels closer and more contemporary and touches on the same theme. And also because this issue of racism is so foreign to my culture that it doesn't resonate with me, at least not in my case. But it was interesting to take a look at that world and perhaps understand a bit of the deep roots of a social problem that fortunately I have never experienced. (Translated from Spanish)