Fiction by Nella Larsen
This was an interesting story that came to my attention because they just made a netflix movie of it.
In 1927 Irene Redfield is an upper-class Negro in New York City, the wife of a doctor and the mother of two young sons. But her comfortable life is disrupted when she unexpectedly sees Clare Kendry, whom she had known as a girl in Chicago. Clare is a beautiful light-skinned woman, and she has chosen to pass for white, marrying a white man who says awful things like, "I don't dislike Negros, I hate them. They give me the creeps, the black scrimy devils."
Literally, this guy says that, in front of Irene and Clare and another woman, ALL OF WHOM are black and he doesn't know it. Clare laughs it off but it's obvious she is hurt. As the story progresses, the reader can see how isolated Clare feels in her marriage, and how she may regret her choices.
This was a short novel but very emotionally moving.
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