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Passing

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Passing

Written by: Nella Larsen
Narrated by: Tessa Thompson
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About this listen

Light-skinned Black woman Irene Redfield encounters an old childhood friend - Clare - who is now "passing" as a White woman. Clare is married to a racist White man, who doesn't know she has African American blood. In spite of the danger of being found out by her husband and society at large, she finds herself helplessly drawn to Irene's world....

Passing is a fascinating listening experience on many simultaneous levels.

©1929 Nella Larsen (P)2020 Audible, Inc. Classics Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological World Literature Fiction
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All stars
Most relevant
This was not what I expected. I read it quickly, found I kept thinking about it and have just finished a re-listen. This powerful novella has so many secrets linked to race, class, motherhood, friendships, marriage - and how many secrets are continually subsumed to lead a comfortable life.

Irene is fascinated with the flamboyant Clare (who has been passing as white for over a decade), and I did wonder why the queer subtext was never explored more in the novella, but made more sense when I found out this was written in the 1920s. I am so pleased I carried on to the end, as the strained relationship between the two main characters gets, at times, uncomfortable.

Tessa Thompson narrates, and will be in the upcoming film adaptation.

So Many Secrets

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I found this piece to be an incite full view of social progresses taking place at this specific time.

The character development

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This really opened my eyes that then, people of color that were light skined were somewhat given a choice of the lifestyles they wanted. Be it ignoring their color and living as a white person would then. Brushing away any history of their true background from the immediate family.

I did the same thing in my life, but it was the other way around.

looking beyond color

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There was an interesting storyline hitting on some hard topics, but I found myself having to hit rewind multiple times due to my mind wandering. I just couldn’t keep myself into the narration so I’m glad it wasn’t too long of a book.

Interesting story

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I was fascinated with the storyline and enjoyed it immensely. The Characters felt real and flawed, struggling not only with race related issues of the time but also the expected conformity and other societal norms. I will be recommending this book to friends.

Interesting read

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The story was fine and interesting to so the social, racial, marital, aspects of black, or biracial, women who look white during a time of segregation. It must be extremely difficult, even dangerous, to live in sphere that you could flow from one group of society to another that could result to assault, jail, death or being so ostracized that you cannot really belong anywhere. Plus, fear of what your children would be seems very mentally and emotionally traumatic.

The obsession for Claire was an interesting take due to it was a good build up that the author wrote. There are some people in the world who are manipulative.


The narrative was very difficult to understand who was Claire versus that of Irene, the narrator can speak well, yet, the differentiation was lacking on who was who.

Story was interesting, the different voices bad

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Had difficulty differentiating the different characters. Had difficulty finishing the story. I don't recommend it.

Trouble finishing

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It helps to know this is a story that was written for an audience segregated by class, race and sex. This is a book I never would have picked up to read, but I’m glad I stumbled upon the audio version.

Harlem Renaissance made accessible

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This story is gripping in its writing and it’s performance. The eerie, unsettling, but all-too-realistic portrayal of characters and and situations is amazing. I was hooked from the instant I started reading.

Harlem Renaissance Meets Southern Gothic

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The legibility of the recording is poor. Between the performers variations in enunciation and volume, I keep missing things. The story has odd unexplained conflicts that are also distracting - the kind of thing a continuity person would flag in a movie. Between these issues makes the actual storyline less enjoyable. I’m not done yet but I’m also expecting what seems to be overwrought foreshadowing to add up to a narrative that makes it not worth the effort of getting through the other issues.

Terrible recording

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