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  The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
  
By Lynn · 3 posts · 40 views
By Lynn · 3 posts · 40 views
    last updated Jun 25, 2025 08:25PM
  
  
  Palace of Desire — discussion with ✴spoilers✴
  
By spoko · 2 posts · 3 views
    By spoko · 2 posts · 3 views
    last updated 7 hours, 20 min ago
  
  
What Members Thought
 
  
              
            
The House Behind the Cedars is certainly built as a romance novel, but what stands out is how Chesnutt uses that structure as a framework for social critique. Tryon’s pursuit of Rena isn’t a particularly interesting love story on its own, but the underlying secret of her identity gives it real tension. What it is is a stage, on which the precariousness of passing and the rigidity of racial boundaries are played out. So the narrative doesn’t move in the traditional direction—it’s not an emotional
  
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        Oct 05, 2015
      
        Kai Coates
      
          marked it as to-read
    
      
  








