Reviews for In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line

The average rating for In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-11-17 00:00:00 Ebgenii Cylimob I really wish I could have met this woman. Born to a poor Danish immigrant mother and a West Indian father in the 19th century, she was destined to be very much on the outs with any culture she might lay claim to. She was not someone who could have "passed" as far as her appearance. Still, she was able to rise above many of her white colleagues in the nursing and librarian fields, not to mention write the novels she is best known for. She lived abroad for periods as a child and an adult, was uber stylish, partied with both blacks and whites of the Harlem Renaissance crowd, and somehow slipped through the cracks of history. Larsen's white half-sister, who along with her mother had disowned Larsen while she was still a child (for their own protection) ended up inheriting a substantial estate from this fascinating woman who died alone, in obscurity. Hutchinson does an amazing job of tracking down information about a person who left very little historical material to go on. It was only after I got into the book that I found out he teaches right here in Bloomington.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-06-11 00:00:00 Jon Spins This was an incredibly well-written and detailed biography. It especially paints a vivid picture of life in Harlem among the literary elite in the late 1920s. I find Nella Larsen's life and writing absolutely fascinating, and what a great shame it is that none of her later correspondence and writings survived - if there were any.