The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and The Stories
By Nella Larsen, Charles Larson and Marita Golden
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About this ebook
Throughout her short but brilliant literary career, Nella Larsen wrote piercing dramas about the black middle class that featured sensitive, spirited heroines struggling to find a place where they belonged. Passing, Larsen’s best-known work, is a disturbing story about the unraveling lives of two childhood friends, one of whom turns her back on her past and marries a white bigot. Just as disquieting is the portrait in Quicksand of Helga Crane, half black and half white, who is unable to escape her loneliness no matter where and with whom she lives. Race and marriage offer few securities here or in the other stories in this compulsively readable collection, rich in psychological complexity and imbued with a sense of place that brings Harlem vibrantly to life.
Nella Larsen
Nella Larsen (1891–1964) was an author, nurse, and librarian best known for her contributions to the Harlem Renaissance. Born to a Danish mother and Afro-Caribbean father in South Chicago, Larsen's life would be seemingly marked by her mixed-race heritage. Too Black for white spaces and not quite Black enough for Black spaces, Larsen would find herself constantly at odds in terms of her identity and belonging. First after the death of her biological father, where she would see her mother be remarried to a white man, have a white half-sibling and move to a mostly white neighborhood; next when she would seek a higher education at Fisk University, a historically Black college where she was unable to relate to the experience of her Black peers, and finally in her adult life in New York where she faced difficulties both professionally and socially. In 1914, Larsen would enroll at a nursing school that was heavily segregated and while working as a nurse two years later was employed in mostly white neighborhoods. She would marry Elmer Imes, the second African American to earn a PhD in psychics, in 1919 which–in addition to the couple's move to Harlem–introduced her to the Black professional class; however still, Larsen's near-European ancestry and lack of a formal degree alienated her from Black contemporaries of the times such as Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and James Weldon Johnson. Larsen would begin to pursue a career as a librarian in 1921, becoming the first Black woman to graduate from the New York Public Library's library school and would help with integration efforts within the branches. Her work in libraries would lead her to the literary circles of Harlem and in 1925 she would begin work on Quicksand, her semi-autobiographical debut novel. Published in 1928 to critical and financial success, Larsen would continue to make waves when just one year later, she published her sophomore novel, Passing. The success of her novels as well as her 1930 short story, "Sanctuary," led her to become the first African American woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, which she used to travel through Europe in the wake of her divorce in 1933. Little is known about Larsen's life after she returned to the U.S. in 1937, other than she had returned to nursing, disappeared from the literary world and may have suffered from intense depression. There was some speculation that like the characters in her books, Larsen had elected to pass into the white community given how difficult it was for single women of color to achieve financial independence, but to this day there is no evidence supporting or disproving the claim. While she died alone at the age of seventy-two, Larsen's work cemented her legacy as an important voice in the Harlem Renaissance–one that represented the struggles of identity and culture that befell mixed-raced people of the time.
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Quicksand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quicksand & Passing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Passing (Rediscovered Books): With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quicksand: With Linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Passing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quicksand Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPassing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quicksand and Passing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Passing, Quicksand, and Other Stories Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Passing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollected works by Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, The Wrong Man, Freedom, Sanctuary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPassing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfrican American Heritage Super Pack #1: Courage and Perseverance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Nella Larsen MEGAPACK® Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfrican American Heritage Super Pack #2: Courage and Perseverance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPassing & Quicksand: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsQuicksand Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPassing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Reviews for The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen
50 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very interesting book with 3 short stories and two novelettes (?) all dealing with race. I love her writing style and the stories stuck with me long after I read them. Sad that this is the complete fiction, I would love to read more.