Nella Larsen: Two Novels, Three Stories. Full Stop.

Nella Larsen (1891-1964) had a ridiculously and tragically short literary career, and it's worth looking at her life just to see why it was so brief. The biracial Larsen, a nurse and soon to become a librarian, married Elmer Imes (one of the few black physicists in America) in 1919, and they became part of the Harlem bourgeois and the Harlem Renaissance. She wrote two "commercial" stories under a pseudonym, published her first novel Quicksand (dedicated to her husband) in 1928, and followed it with the even more acclaimed Passing the next year. At that point she was one of the brightest stars of the Harlem Renaissance. The two novels were followed by a short story published in 1930, which led to charges of plagiarism. She never published again. Larsen traveled to Europe on a Guggenheim grant, writing a new novel Mirage, returning in 1932. After learning of her husband's affair with a white woman the couple divorced in 1933. She acknowledged that "he broke my heart" and suffered from depression for several years. Mirage, set in New Jersey, concerned a woman who learns her husband is still in love with his first wife, and so she has an affair with a "cad." It was rejected by her publisher, as were her next two novels. At that point Larsen stopped writing. The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen (2001, originally published in 1992) includes all that she published. Afterward, she retained her ex-husband's name, receiving alimony until his death in 1941, by which time she'd begun a highly successful nursing career that lasted the rest of her life. She was always exceptional.

The first two stories Larsen published are competent and entertaining, but not earth shattering, not to the level of her novels. She called it her "hack writing," though I think the stories are better than that. Their greatest interest, however, may be for the purpose of re-examining them in light of Larsen's racial background and her unstable marriage. For example, one story concerns a woman who has risen from poverty to security, but fears that all could be lost in a moment. The other is about a man who abandons his mistress because of some "depravity" in her character. "The Wrong Man" and "Freedom," both published in 1926 under a pseudonym (the too-clever "Allen Semi"), are solid, though average (the writing is fine) at best, say nothing about race, are ostensibly about white people, and both depend on an inartful surprise ending. Neither story seems to be from the Nella Larsen we know and love. The third story, "Sanctuary," was published in January 1930. It was soon recognized as plagiarized from "Mrs. Adis" (1922) by Sheila Kaye-Smith, which was set in England. Although the duplication is undeniable (the similarities are described as "striking," "telling," and "embarrassing"), Larsen refashioned "Mrs. Adis" to her own purposes. The story was about working-class American blacks, rather than the bourgeois blacks she wrote about in her novels and other stories. Her version also, atypically, included dialect (as did the original), but more significantly, the key plot twist depends on race loyalty, rather than simple friendship as in Kaye-Smith's story. Despite the poaching, I think Larsen's story is the more powerful. It's a shame that she didn't realize what she'd done or didn't do more to distinguish "Sanctuary," as it's a valuable addition to her work. I believe Larsen simply and deliberately retold the story in a new and more dramatic setting, but for some reason felt she couldn't acknowledge that. Quicksand, her first novel, told the story of a biracial woman seeking her identity, but unable to survive in either the black or white worlds. Our protagonist, Helga Crane, can be bold, daring, but also self destructive (as Larsen described it, the "sorry tale of a girl who got what she wanted"). She needs to, but can't escape from the expectations others place on her, living in a world that harshly enforces the rules of the color line (and sexuality), and denies a place for someone who doesn't fit as either black or white. The ending is despairing and claustrophobic. Apart from its notable social significance, Quicksand is a work of substantial literary merit, more complex then similar novels of the time. Larsen's second novel, the play-like Passing, introduces two women, both sides of the same coin. Irene (our narrator) is a mixed-race woman married to black man and who lives in the black community. Clare is a mixed-race woman married to a virulently racist white man and now "passes" for white. (Some have said that Larsen herself "passed," but she was proud of her race and there is no evidence that she ever did so or even could have.) But Clare wants to re-engage with the community of her childhood, despite the danger of being exposed, and thus we have a story. Again Larsen investigates the color line in America adding the additional complications of marriage and sexuality. Both are excellent novels that still have much to say beyond their historical interest. Of the two, I prefer Passing, but both are strong novels that can only make us sorrow that Nella Larsen was unable to publish in the last 34 years of her life.  🐢