upward on a magic carpet to another world”), and, soon after, at the sight of Clare: “a sweetly scented woman in a fluttering dress of green chiffon whose mingled pattern of narcissuses, jonquils, and hyacinths was a reminder of pleasantly chill spring days.” Irene is immediately fascinated by this woman, not realizing that she already knows her, but she is unsettled, “put out” by the intensity of Clare’s gaze at her, which is “that of one who with utmost singleness of mind and purpose was determined to impress firmly and accurately each detail of Irene’s features upon her memory for all time.” A quiet duel of mutual gazing ensues for the next few pages, in which it is unclear whose looking will organize the scene, and, possibly, the narrative itself. Will Clare tell Irene’s story? Or will Irene tell Clare’s? Irene, who for the rest of the novel represents good race consciousness and pride, is determined, in these few moments, not to be revealed as being African American. Holding Clare’s gaze, she thinks, “Suppose the woman did know or suspect her race. She couldn’t prove it.” The reader is off balance in this tense scene, not knowing quite whom to trust or what, exactly, is at stake.
The tension breaks when Clare crosses the room to remind Irene that they were childhood friends. From this moment on, Irene becomes firmly ensconced as the guiding perspective, and she delivers Clare’s backstory—wrong side of the tracks, bad janitor dad, suspiciously fancy clothes, often seen in the company of white people—as a tale of a girl gone wrong, a pretty girl (“almost too good-looking”) who can’t be trusted. Girls like that, the reader knows, die a lot in novels. We are relieved, kind of, to leave the hall of mirrors where two passing women stare at one another in a segregated space, each daring the other to blow her cover, for the shelter of Irene’s point of view. Irene, we see, will tell the story: Irene is black; so is Clare; Clare is a liar; liars die. Only Irene’s husband, Brian, who, we later find out, is sleeping with Clare, seems capable of intuiting what Clare’s motives, her narrative drive, might be. In a discussion with Irene about Clare’s racist husband and what the attraction might be, Brian remarks, “They always come back.” (The “they” is somewhat ambiguous; he seems to mean white men going after black women, but in the context it could also mean black women returning to racist white men.) When Irene asks why, Brian replies, “If I knew that, I’d know what race is.” It’s a fascinating, telling remark that flickers past all too quickly, but leaves a strong trace. What Brian suggests is that race is as much a story lived out in the most intimate realms of one’s life as it is a physical reality, and that both are ultimately unknowable. Irene quickly snaps back, “Well, Clare can just count me out,” a statement that seems patently false, since the entire novel is occasioned by Clare.
Unlike The Secret Sharer, which seams the disappearance of Leggatt so tightly into a discourse of freedom and mastery that one almost can’t see the stitches, Passing seems at times to be inviting the reader to consider the story being told from the point of view of the character who occupies the center of the novel, but is also silenced by it. Leggatt and the captain may or may not be at all alike; Clare and Irene, we know with certainty, are two sides of the same light-skinned coin. One woman chooses to pass; the other eschews it (except when it’s convenient); both pay. In the space between them, a space as thin as a coin edge, is a vast, nearly unsayable realm of uncertainty and pain about the nature of identity itself in a racist culture. Irene reflects bitterly at one point that “Clare Kendry cared nothing for the race. She only belonged to it,” a sentiment that it is probably safe to say no white character has ever uttered in a novel. Clare’s freedom is as
The tension breaks when Clare crosses the room to remind Irene that they were childhood friends. From this moment on, Irene becomes firmly ensconced as the guiding perspective, and she delivers Clare’s backstory—wrong side of the tracks, bad janitor dad, suspiciously fancy clothes, often seen in the company of white people—as a tale of a girl gone wrong, a pretty girl (“almost too good-looking”) who can’t be trusted. Girls like that, the reader knows, die a lot in novels. We are relieved, kind of, to leave the hall of mirrors where two passing women stare at one another in a segregated space, each daring the other to blow her cover, for the shelter of Irene’s point of view. Irene, we see, will tell the story: Irene is black; so is Clare; Clare is a liar; liars die. Only Irene’s husband, Brian, who, we later find out, is sleeping with Clare, seems capable of intuiting what Clare’s motives, her narrative drive, might be. In a discussion with Irene about Clare’s racist husband and what the attraction might be, Brian remarks, “They always come back.” (The “they” is somewhat ambiguous; he seems to mean white men going after black women, but in the context it could also mean black women returning to racist white men.) When Irene asks why, Brian replies, “If I knew that, I’d know what race is.” It’s a fascinating, telling remark that flickers past all too quickly, but leaves a strong trace. What Brian suggests is that race is as much a story lived out in the most intimate realms of one’s life as it is a physical reality, and that both are ultimately unknowable. Irene quickly snaps back, “Well, Clare can just count me out,” a statement that seems patently false, since the entire novel is occasioned by Clare.
Unlike The Secret Sharer, which seams the disappearance of Leggatt so tightly into a discourse of freedom and mastery that one almost can’t see the stitches, Passing seems at times to be inviting the reader to consider the story being told from the point of view of the character who occupies the center of the novel, but is also silenced by it. Leggatt and the captain may or may not be at all alike; Clare and Irene, we know with certainty, are two sides of the same light-skinned coin. One woman chooses to pass; the other eschews it (except when it’s convenient); both pay. In the space between them, a space as thin as a coin edge, is a vast, nearly unsayable realm of uncertainty and pain about the nature of identity itself in a racist culture. Irene reflects bitterly at one point that “Clare Kendry cared nothing for the race. She only belonged to it,” a sentiment that it is probably safe to say no white character has ever uttered in a novel. Clare’s freedom is as
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