“Passing” refers to a member of one race successfully pretending to be of a different race. Claire is a very light-skinned woman with black ancestry who passes as white to the extent of marrying a white bigot and he never knows the difference. Her childhood friend Irene is too dark to physically pass, but the title is ironic, because Irene is an upper-class African American–of the class and temperament to imitate whites in terms of societal structures. Meanwhile, Claire tends more and more throughout the book to want to revert to her African American upbringing–so is it really Claire or Irene who is “passing”? The idea of there being a black societal hierarchy that is separate but parallel to white society is also found in Jessie’ Fauset’s There is Confusion; I hadn’t really thought of this existing before, so seeing more of its intricacies was interesting. Plus, both Irene and Claire were intriguing characters. A small, slight book, but insightful and engaging.
Above Average

Helga leaves the black school where she teaches because the administration doesn’t put any value on being African American, but tries to emulate white culture as much as possible. Her subsequent travels take her to Chicago, New York, and even Denmark for a while (her mother was Danish), and then back to the deep south. There are some interesting bits, especially in the differences between being black in America and being black in Europe, but the ending depressed me so much I was looking for the nearest bridge to jump off.
Below AverageQu

Jessie Fauset was one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, her home being a major meeting-place for the African American writers and artists of the 1920s…sort of like the 19th century Parisian salons. She also wrote a novel or two, including this one. It’s really interesting for its insight into an upper-middle-class black family in New York City in the 1920s, a side of the culture you don’t often see. It basically posits a societal order among black families that’s separate from but equivalent to white families. The one thing I really liked about it was that it focused more on interpersonal relations than race relations – race was in there, of course, but Fauset was under no delusions that solving the race problem would solve every problem facing her characters, because the socio-economic and personal conflicts would still be there. That said, There is Confusion is a fairly routine book. It was a fast, fairly enjoyable read, but it wasn’t anything terribly special.
Average

This is not, despite the title, an autobiography. It is fiction. Interestingly, Johnson originally published it in 1912 anonymously, leading many people to think it was an actual autobiography of a biracial man passing as white. It’s still powerful, though, even when you know it’s not true–in fact, it adds a level of irony and self-referentiality that’s really cool. The man is “ex-colored” because he’s light enough to pass for white–in fact, he didn’t know himself that he and his mother were black until he was like, seven. His life takes him from Georgia as a little boy, to Connecticut, Harlem, Europe, the deep south, and eventually back to New York, and allows him to compare the treatment of the race question in all those places and among all classes of people. (Honestly, the range of his experiences should be enough to show the book is fiction…then again, Langston Hughes had similarly far-reaching experiences…) It’s a well-done book, and though it seems really simple, actually has many different layers to it, depending on how you choose to read it.
Well Above Average