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This book is a small gem that well deserves its place in Boxall's 1001 Books to Read Before You Die.

We meet Irene and Clare, childhood friends, who took separate paths in life and end up reconnecting at a hotel restaurant in Chicago. Irene lives in Harlem with her black husband and two sons. Clare is married to a white man who is unaware that she is black. Both Irene and Clare are light enough to pass as white in society, but one is completely engaged in the Harlem social life and the other is effectively barred from her own people because of her marital choice. When Clare feels the need to return to her roots, she sees Irene as the agent for doing so, and let's just say, the situation is much more fraught with tension than you'd anticipate.

I loved Larsen's writing style. She uses the third person, but in a way that it feels like Irene is actually narrating. Irene's character is incredibly well developed. The reader is truly brought to understand her misgivings about race, her marriage, and Clare's newfound presence in her life. We understand her thinking and her decisions and empathize with her pain.

An unexpected ending caps off a very strong, but short read.

I truly found it hard to believe this book was written in the 1920's. It felt so contemporary in many ways.

I almost bought it because it was such a good price. It sounds like one I have to read.