An Intimation of Things Distant: The Collected Fiction of Nella Larsen

Gathers three stories and two novels by Larsen, an influential writer of the Harlem Renaissance, and briefly describes her background

Larsen is an oft-overlooked black writer from the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. These two short novels and three short stories reveal a voice from the past that addresses contemporary, timeless issues--from the politics of hair-straightening to the double handicap of being black and female in America. In the pointed "Sanctuary," a woman's loyalty to her race proves stronger than anger and grief. Quicksand portrays a complex heroine, Helga Crane, who will not settle for a compromised way of life that many black women of the day would have embraced. She quits her rigid teaching job and eventually moves to Copenhagen; she refuses a marriage proposal from a famous, somewhat arrogant white artist. The end of the novel finds Helga trapped in domestic hell in the American South--the price for holding out for a more fulfilling existence. In Passing, Clare Kendry "passes" for white, fooling even her own racist husband. The story is seen through the eyes of Irene Redfield, an old friend of Clare's who does not approve of her friend's crossing over. Ultimately, and surprisingly, this becomes a powerful story about Irene's marriage. Here is Larsen's genius: her insightful, damning social commentary never overshadows her art. Larson wrote The Emergence of African Fiction.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A striking collection of two novels and three short stories, the entire output of a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance, who was the first African-American woman to be awarded a Guggenheim fellowship (in 1930), and whose literary career had ended by 1933. Larsen's novels are by far the more gripping (published here with the correct endings for the first time in decades), as each penetrates with clinical detachment into the psyche of sensitive, middle-class black women, trapped by both gender and color in desperate lives full of dreams deferred. Quicksand (1928) charts the course of Helga Crane, a spirited young teacher in a southern college, who realizes that the gospel of conformity and self- imposed segregation preached there isn't for her. Relocating to the heart of Harlem, the heady atmosphere of which first entrances and then disgusts her, she decides to visit Copenhagen to stay with her white mother's relatives. Offered the chance of marriage to a prominent painter, Helga flees in confusion instead, back to Harlem, where her quandary leads her to sudden salvation in a street mission and the subsequent eclipse of her identity as she becomes the wife of a rural Alabama preacher, undone by the birth of one unwanted child after another. Passing (1929) is even more violent in its sense of retribution for a black woman's attempt to live on both sides of the color line, as Clare Kendry rejects her heritage to such a degree that she marries a white bigot, only to find herself in time yearning for contact with other African- Americans. Found out by her husband, she pays for her deception with her life. Refined social drama on the surface, in which the black experience is impeccably detailed, but beneath the refinement seethes an emotional cauldron of race and paternalism--into which Larsen's heroines are plunged with brutal, deadly force. Melodramatic, certainly, but the message is still timely. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Larsen, a writer during the Harlem Renaissance, has deservedly gained wide praise for her portrayal of black middle-class life in Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). Editor Larson has gathered together these two novels and Larsen's three published short stories. He provides "corrected" endings for the novels (which seem very slightly changed from previous editions). What is most significant is the hard-to-obtain short stories. The best of these, "Sanctuary," is interesting not only for its literary merits but also because Larsen was accused of plagiarizing the work from Sheila Kaye-Smith. The editor writes a good introduction about Larsen, an author for whom many questions are still unanswered, including her place of birth and her parentage. Some libraries already owning Deborah McDowell's fine edition of Larsen's novels (Rutgers Univ. Pr., 1986) may wish to skip this volume, but the inclusion of the stories makes it essential for those with extensive holdings in African American and/or women's literature.
- Louis J. Parascandola, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn Campus
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.