My name is Mary Rennels, and “I can’t say whether I’d ‘pass’ or not.” (85) I have just finished writing my review of the novel “Passing” by Nella Larsen for The New York Telegram.

And I am confused and angry. I would have so much more to say about this novel, but as a professional critic, I can’t. At least not within my published reviews. Here are some of the notes I made while I was writing the review:

I’m extremely disappointed. I was so curious about this book, I had so much hope to find some answers, but instead I think that Nella Larsen, even after writing a whole novel about someone who “passes”, has not found any answers to the vital questions she explored so well and so profoundly—until the last pages of “Passing”.

It’s not that easy, Mrs. Larsen, and you know that! “Knocking a character out of a scene doesn’t settle a matter.” (85) Do you really think you can solve the problem like this? What about your readers who, like me, could maybe “pass” themselves, what about those who actually do, who live like Clare does? What should they take away from your story? What about this racist society? Should it just stay like it is? Don’t you see your responsibility as a writer, whose works get published? You have to give us answers, or at least some of the conclusions you came up with while writing and researching this book. This topic is too important to just be dissolved in a crime-like story of jealousy. Your book “is more a question than it is literature” (85), and the question stays open in a way that I can’t agree with.

Quotes from:

Rennels, Mary (1929): “Passing” Is a Novel of Longings”, The New York Telegram, April 27, 1929. In: Larsen, Nella 1929/2007): Passing. A Norton Critical Edition. p. 85.

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