Irene is as light-skinned as Clare and is married to a darker-skinned black man who’s a doctor they have two young sons. The close third-person POV is Irene’s and, once I got to the final section, it dawned on me how close of a perspective it is and how important it is to remember that when thinking of Clare, Irene’s biracial friend from childhood who’s ‘passing’ as white. Now that I know the ending, I should reread Passing. The short novel is psychologically astute and extremely well-written, especially for a first work. Three men, only one of whom she loves, are unsuitable for marriage for various reasons a fourth comes into her life at a vulnerable period. All options open to her become successively disappointing, and depressing after her initial enthusiasm: a teacher in a school that models Anglo-Saxon values employment in Chicago with a wealthy woman who introduces her to New York and friendship with another wealthy woman who disdains romantic biracial relationships two years in Copenhagen being pampered and displayed by her mother’s sister back to Harlem where she feels both more comfortable and uncomfortable then to the South for the arguably abrupt denouement. Though she has some financial help along her way, she needs to work. Helga Crane is a biracial young woman in the 1920s.
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