I read this short 1929 novel—part of Penguin’s Little Clothbound Classics series—without knowing much about it, and found myself unexpectedly absorbed. It’s a book about identity, race, belonging and friendship, and introduced me to an element of African-American history I’d previously encountered only in passing, if you’ll forgive the pun. That element is the act of ‘passing’: light-skinned Black Americans presenting themselves as white to escape racial discrimination. Larsen’s novel examines this through the lens of two women—old school friends who meet again in adulthood—and the complex tangle of their re-entwined lives.

One of them, Clare, is married to a white man who is not just unaware of her racial background, but has deeply racist views about black people. I found her frustrating, in a way that I think Larsen intends: charming and careless, drawn like a moth to the flame of the life she left behind. The other woman, Irene, is more cautious and conflicted, and it was her perspective I found easier to connect with. Though Clare’s choices drive the plot, Irene’s perspective provides the emotional and moral centre of the novel—and much of its ambiguity.

There weren’t any specific scenes that hit with particular emotional force, but the whole novel simmers with social commentary. Larsen is writing about race and class and gender, yes—but also about the slow erosion of friendship, and the way that polite social obligation can keep us bound to people long after it does either party much good. That element felt as contemporary as anything I’ve read recently. The writing didn’t feel dated to me at all: crisp, readable, quietly biting.

I read the whole thing in a couple of sittings, and then—somewhat hilariously—left it behind in a Wetherspoons, hence Penguin’s stock photo at the top of this post. A clothbound novel about the fraught tension between outward appearances and private truth, abandoned on a sticky table in a noisy pub. There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere.

The ending, famously ambiguous, worked for me. I enjoy novels that leave space for the reader to reflect and interpret rather than spelling everything out. And this one leaves plenty of space—moral, emotional, and otherwise. I can see why Passing has become a modern classic. I’m glad to have finally met it.