2025 December: Quicksand by Nella Larsen

[Lesle, Appalachian Bibliophile]

Quicksand is the first novel by American author Nella Larsen (U.S., 1928) at 192 pgs.

The most obviously autobiographical of Larsen. The story of a bi-racial young woman who sets out on a mission to to find the people among whom she will feel she belongs.

In a letter to close personal friend Carl van Vechten, Larsen referred to the emotional experiences of the novel as "the awful truth", as she herself struggled with finding a sense of belonging between the worlds of her Danish mother and African American father.

This quote introduces the novel's central theme of being biracial and caught between two worlds, a struggle that defines the life of the protagonist, Helga Crane:

My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I’m gonna die,
Being neither white nor black? Langston Hughes (epigraph from the poem "Cross")

Think about understanding this question:
Will Helga always be unable to find happiness or contentment?

Anyone in for a Psychology and Internal Conflict?

[Rosemarie, Northern Roaming Scholar]

Isn't this our December book?

[Kathy]

Rosemarie wrote: "Isn't this our December book?"

I thought we were reading The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher in November.

[Rosemarie, Northern Roaming Scholar]

So did I.

[Lesle, Appalachian Bibliophile]

Oops!!
Locking this till December!!