In today's episode, Nichols and Newman discuss Nella Larsen's 1929 Harlem Renaissance classic Passing (1929) with guest Megan Abbott, focusing on its groundbreaking treatment of gender and sexuality. Megan Abbott is the bestselling author of many novels, including Give Me Your Hand, which won the Anthony Award, and the forthcoming The Turnout, (which you can pre-order here). She has also written for TV series The Deuce and was co-creator and co-showrunner of the TV adaptation of her novel Dare Me.
And because at Lit Century we love extra historical content, here's an article on novelist and critic Carl van Vechten, now best remembered for popularizing the music and literature of Harlem in white America; he was Larsen's best friend when she wrote Passing, and appears in the novel as Hugh Wentworth. And here's some fascinating background about LGBT life in the period, and how the Harlem Renaissance "… was surely as gay as it was black."
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