The writing in this book was somewhat unclear and sometime difficult, but the ideas came through. The protagonist felt very uncomfortable in her biracial skin, as she was treated as an "other." She travelled through her life very angrily, which can easily be understood. This book was written in 1922, and though there has been some improvement, sadly so much was relevant today. The fact that it was very much based on the author is tragic. ( )

Helga Crane is a mixed-race woman, who never feels she fits into either world that is offered her--that of the Southern blacks in the school at which she teaches in the beginning of the story, that of that progressive blacks who befriend her in Harlem, nor that of her Danish white relatives, who treat her as an oddity when she flees to Denmark. She is a person without a racial identity, and that, for Nella Larsen, is worse than perhaps any other fate she could be sentenced to.

It is sad to watch Helga’s descent from a respectable job and a possible good marriage to a life that could not be deemed acceptable for any of us. The novel is well-titled, for Helga steps into the quicksand of her life and is pulled under slowly, even as she struggles mentally with how to break the cycle and pull free.

In addition to tackling the complex world of race relations and racial identity, Larsen addresses religion as the great panacea that she sees as a method of keeping the black population contented with their unacceptable lives and focused on rewards that can only come in the hereafter. The Reverend Pleasant Green is as unpleasant as can be, but one cannot help thinking he is but another victim of the situation and of Helga’s innate dissatisfaction.

We are given an array of female characters with which to contrast Helga. Anne Grey, a black woman who hates white people and has a position of importance in the black community, and Miss Denny, a black woman who seems to accept people in terms of who they are individually and without consideration of their skin color, are two of the most interesting. The women are complete opposites, but both seem to have found what Helga cannot, a place of belonging.

So much of this novel feels like an autobiography. I could not help thinking Nella Larsen must have lived many of these feelings of alienation and being treated as an oddity herself, considering how her own life story parallels Helga’s fictional one in so many details.

Like [b:Passing|349929|Passing|Nella Larsen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388214730l/349929._SY75_.jpg|2369306], this novel is a wonderful insight into the mind and attitudes of blacks in the 1920s, particularly those of mixed race. Nella Larsen is required reading in my view. Her books are short, but her stories have a between-the-eyes impact that is unforgettable.


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Heartbreaking, delicate rendition of emotion. ( )

“Always she had wanted, not money, but the things which money could give, leisure, attention, beautiful surroundings. Things. Things. Things.” (p. 63). Kindle Edition.

This book’s title does not refer to literal quicksand. Rather, Helga Crane, the protagonist, is figuratively entrapped and frustrated as though she is in quicksand. The story begins as Helga, a biracial woman, is teaching at Naxos, a southern school for American Blacks, in the 1920s. Helga believed that the school promulgated the superiority of Caucasians, and she thought it was disgraceful to her people to pretend to educate them in such a place. So when she abruptly quit, she uttered these words to Dr. Robert Anderson, the Black principal:

“Well, for one thing, I hate hypocrisy. I hate cruelty to students, and to teachers who can’t fight back. I hate backbiting, and sneaking, and petty jealousy. Naxos? It’s hardly a place at all. It’s more like some loathsome, venomous disease. Ugh! Everybody spending his time in a malicious hunting for the weaknesses of others, spying, grudging, scratching.” (p. 18).

Dr. Anderson shows up again in the novel, and it is apparent that Helga is attracted to him. However, as Helga begins the next part of her life’s journey by taking a train to Chicago, the reader soon realizes how discontent and restless Helga is. Naxos represented the Anglo-Saxon world. However, when she begins to encounter other people, white, black and biracial, they seem charming and alluring at first but continually remind her of the hypocrisy of society, especially when it comes to racial discrimination.

She hopes at first to receive assistance from her Uncle Peter, who had funded her schooling. But, when that doesn’t work out, she ends up relying on the resources of a YWCA in Chicago, where she eventually meets Mrs. Hayes-Rore, who hires Helga to travel from Chicago to New York with her and help her prepare speeches. Mrs. Hayes-Rore is also mixed race and has the social prestige that Helga seeks. Mrs. Hayes-Rore introduces her to Anne Grey, a socialite widow who shares her home with her in New York until she has the opportunity to visit her aunt and uncle in Denmark. In Denmark, she has the chance to marry an artist, but she returns to New York with uncertain goals and eventually marries, but she never loses her impulsive nature.

In many ways, Helga is an unlikeable character. Still, Nella Larson has created her to force readers to consider the plight of biracial people and people of color in multiple geographic locations: The South, Chicago, New York, and Europe. Helga is cynical and discontent. She flees every time she approaches intimacy with another human being. She feels confined and powerless, yet she seeks higher social status. Hela is uncomfortable in her skin, identifies with neither the Whites nor Blacks and continually strives to reinvent herself.
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Quicksand captures the struggles of being a black woman during the time of racism. The main character chooses to use her light skin color to "pass" and pretend to be someone who she is not in order to subject herself to better treatment. ( )