Notes
Quicksand and Passing are the only novels Nella Larsen wrote in her short-lived literary career. She returned to nursing some years later based on what I read online about her life. It’s somewhat unfortunate that there’s no more The Next Novel because these two stories highlight Larsen’s budding brilliance as a storyteller and historian.
In Quicksand, Helga Crane, a mixed-race woman, tries to escape her current life and start anew. She wounds up in Chicago and Harlem and then somehow in Copenhagen. It’s kind of like a psych drama; we spend a lot time inside the stormy mind of Helga. It took me a while to adjust to this story (and the writing), but by the end I was clutching my chest.