I know who you are, and I am—weirdly enough—thankful to you for reaching out. Your reasoning shows exactly why I am criticizing Mrs. Larson’s book, and therefore criticizing you, one of the characters she has created. Yes, you killed Clare, and yes, you might even go so far as to think that you “put her out of her misery”—a horrible rationale I can with no means accept.

I am sorry for you, and for Clare, because both of you, and especially you, do not see that the roots of the conflicts you are struggling with lie in this racist society, in this horrible ideology that drives people like John Bellew to think and act the way they do, that puts you, us, in the situation that we have to decide whether we try to pass or not. I just wish Mrs. Larson would have given you and therefore also me, as one of her readers, the means to understand that and to understand that you and Clare and I, we, are affected by the same oppressive forces and to understand how we can stand up against them. Your actions show the disastrous outcomes of what happens when we do not see how our thoughts and feelings are influenced by the society we live in, when we think that we have to resolve these conflicts merely on an individual level instead of seeing their political dimensions, and instead of thinking about how we can start the change we need.

I will not give up my hope for a better future, even though it seems so far away as your letter has shown me once more.

Mary Rennels

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