A review by savaging
Quicksand by Nella Larsen

4.0

Larsen writes the life of Helga Crane, a young black woman in the 1920s, with the kind of psychological nuance that Henry James brought to the lives of white aristocracy. It's a beautiful and brave book (for instance: delving into pleasure is Helga's high point, while her moral fall consists of finding God and a husband). Sometimes the sentence structure irritated me - such beautiful, lush settings made me want beautiful sentences too. The narrative arc felt like it also had structural flaws that jostles the reader around a bit -- but a fascinating book (that passes the Bechdel test in chapter one and keeps on going!).