I hadn’t even heard of Plum Bun a few weeks ago, then I read a review of it on Julianna’s The Blank Garden blog. I knew instantly I wanted to read it and read it soon – recognising that it would make an interesting companion novel with Passing and The Vanishing Half which I read earlier this year.
The author Jessie Redmon Fauset was a contributor to the Harlem renaissance with her editorship of The Crisis, a NAACP magazine. In her own work she focused on themes such as racial discrimination, ‘passing’ and feminism. During the 1920s and 30s she published four novels – Plum Bun was the second of them, she also published some poetry, short stories and essays.
Plum Bun tells the story of Angela Murray – a young very light skinned African American woman who leaving her home in Philadelphia heads to New York where she intends to pass for white.
The novel starts with Angela in her mid-teens living happily with her family in a small house in Philadelphia. She has a younger sister Virginia (Jinny) – and parents; Mattie and Junius are simply devoted to one another. It is a happy, united family – though as she has grown up, Angela has begun to associate all the things she sees as worth having in life with being white. Like her mother Mattie, Angela has the pale skin inherited from her white ancestors – both Mattie and Angela are able to pass for white – sometimes deliberately – sometimes quite by accident. Virginia by contrast has a brown skin like her darker skinned father. Mattie sometimes chooses to ‘pass’ for convenience, and because she despises the stupid, prejudicial rules of the society in which they live. Mattie’s ability to ‘pass’ has quite an effect on her daughter Angela and unwittingly a seed is sown.
“…it seemed to Angela that all the things which she most wanted were wrapped up with white people. All the good things were theirs. Not, some coldly reasoning instinct within was saying, because they were white. But because for the present they had power and the badge of that power was whiteness…”
Angela is mistaken for white by a new girl at school – and the reaction of her new friend when she discovers her error – is profound. As she and Jinny get older the race question is one often discussed and argued over in their group of friends.
“We’ve all of us got to make up our minds to the sacrifice of some thing. I mean something more than just the ordinary sacrifices in life, not so much for the sake of the next generation as for the sake of some principle, for the sake of some immaterial quality like pride or intense self-respect or even a saving complacency; a spiritual tonic which the race needs perhaps just as much as the body might need iron or whatever it does need to give the proper kind of resistance. There are some things which an individual might want, but which he’d just have to give up forever for the sake of the more important whole.”
As young women of colour, when Angela and Jinny leave school and go out into the world to earn their own living their options are few. Angela attends an arts academy after leaving school but for both sisters the best option open to them is to be teachers. They are only permitted to work in certain schools – and both sisters start out on this path. However, Angela does not really want to be a teacher – as an artist her ambitions lie elsewhere – and she resents how much of the world is closed to her – how few chances there are because of her racial identity.
Angela finds the society of Philadelphia just too narrow for her – and she longs to break away. One of the young men in Angela and Jinny’s circle of friends has rather fallen for her – but Angela is unable to return his feelings.
In her early twenties, Angela makes the decision to go to New York city – where she intends to continue her art studies – and live her life passing as white. Once in New York she enters the bohemian, artistic scene of Greenwich Village and begins a passionate relationship with Roger; a wealthy young man, who she quickly learns is horribly bigoted.
“Angela was visual minded. She saw the days of the week, the months of the year in little narrow divisions of space. She saw the past years of her life falling into separate, uneven compartments whose ensemble made up her existence. Whenever she looked back on this period from Christmas to Easter she saw a bluish haze beginning in a white mist and flaming into something red and terrible; and across the bluish haze stretched the name: Roger.”
Her romance puts her relationship with her sister in jeopardy as Jinny comes to New York to be near her sister – and Angela is forced to make some difficult decisions. Roger represents freedom and possibilities that have been so far barred to Angela, but at what cost? Over the course of the next year – Angela comes to learn a lot about herself, and about race in the United States in the late 1920s. Jessie Fauset shows us that the issue of ‘passing’ was a complex one, one that threw up all kinds of dilemma’s about family and identity.
Plum Bun is a fascinating and hugely readable novel, which despite its subtitle I do not think is entirely without moral. I found myself fully involved in the lives of these sisters, Angela is a flawed woman, but still so likeable – she acknowledges her errors and learns from them. It is a shame that this novel is not better known.
Definitely one for my list. That subtitle is so interesting. I wonder what it was intended to signify..
Yes, the subtitle made me wonder the same. Perhaps the author wanted to ensure it wasn’t just taken as what we might call an ‘issues’ novel now, but contained a readable narrative.
What a wonderful description of the visual mind, with some synesthesia thrown in for good measure.
Yes, that is such a good description.
Great review, Ali! I am so happy you enjoyed this novel 🙂
I really did, so thank you for bringing it to my attention.
What a find, Ali! It sounds marvellous and a wonderful exploration of the issues surrounding passing. It must have often torn families apart.
It was such a good find. A really excellent portrayal of a subject I have read about before.
What a very interesting book! I’ve always had the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that Jessie Redmon Faucett has been a bit overshadowed by other Harlem Renaissance figures. There was, after all, a lot of competition; since most of it was male, as I recall, she probably faced the usual double burden of race AND sex. It’s nice to think that her work may finally be getting some well deserved attention.
I wonder if Plum Bun’s subtitle might be an oblique reference to the “tragic mulatto” genre, in which a biracial person, usually female, comes to a bad end when she attempts to pass for white? There were reams of this kind of thing being written in the early-mid 20th century. Just a speculation.
I’ve been thinking of reading Bennett’s The Vanishing Half for quite some time. It struck me as quite interesting that “passing” could still be such an issue, in a period where racial lines have softened (NOT saying that racial prejudice isn’t alive and well, just that being biracial is far more accepted than in earlier periods). In case you’re interested, Bennett’s novel was named as one of the New York Times’ best books of 2020.
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve read Larsen’s Passing, but didn’t it also have a major biracial character who “passed” and married a wealthy and very bigoted white guy? If so, it’s very interesting that this trope turns up in both writers.
You’ve definitely put Faucett’s Plum Bun on my TBR list. Many thanks!
Yes, perhaps Jessie Redmon Fauset was overshadowed a bit, and perhaps why I hadn’t heard of her until recently. The Vanishing Half is very good, and although it’s a modern novel the setting is mainly 1960s – 1990s. Yes there is a character in Passing married to a very prejudiced white man. Glad you like the sound of this one.
This sounds excellent Ali – one to check out for sure.
Excellent, glad you like the sound of it.
I’ve got a copy of Passing waiting for me and will read this as a companion too, an excellent idea!
I think reading them both close together would be a good idea. Hope you enjoy them both.
How interesting it must have been to read this in the context of the issues raised by Passing and The Vanishing Half. It sounds ripe for a reissue, maybe from Virago or Persephone?
Yes, so glad I found about this one, it made an interesting companion to those other two. It would be lovely to see it re-issued by someone.
This sounds fascinating and such a good companion to the other two.
Yes it was, really glad that I found out about it.
This has been on my TBR for awhile (maybe it landed there after I read Passing, too) but it’s hard to find. Hopefully, as others have said, it’ll be picked up for reprinting.
Yes it doesn’t seem to be hugely well known but it really does deserve to be re-issued.