In Passing

In Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, Passing, two childhood friends reconnect as adults, after having followed a similar course: they have married, become mothers, and entered into the comforts of the middle and upper classes. One of them continues to identify as Black (except when it’s convenient not to do so), while the other has publicly claimed the white side of her mixed-race parentage to deceive her virulently racist husband.

The practice of racial passing gives Larsen’s book its animating force, from the moment the women run into each other in a de facto whites-only rooftop bar to the tragic ending when the truth comes out. It’s also used to explore the nuances of race and class in a time that featured both intense discrimination and Black flourishing. (Drawn to Harlem’s rich culture, the white-passing character takes increasingly dangerous risks to once again experience what she has relinquished.)

Now, nearly a century later, Tara Gereaux’s...