Clare Kendry has severed all ties to her past. Elegant fairskinned and ambitious she is married to a white man who is unaware of her AfricanAmerican heritage. When she renews her acquaintance with her childhood friend Irene who has not hidden her origins both women are forced to reassess their marriages the lies they have told and to confront the secret fears they have buried within themselves. Nella Larsens intense taut and psychologically nuanced portrayal of lives and identities dangerously colliding established her as a leading writer of Americas Harlem Renaissance.The Penguin English Library collectable general readers editions of the best fiction in English from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.