Linda Villarosa: "Passing for Black"

By Linda Villarosa, Special to BlackVoices.com

Several years ago, I sat in front of my computer and began writing a novel. The theme was "passing." In college, I devoured novels by Charles Chesnutt, Nella Larsen and James Weldon Johnson. I was intrigued by the so-called tragic mulattoes of the 19^th and early 20^th century who were forced, in Larsen's words, to leave their blackness behind to enter the "hazardous business of 'passing,' thus breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one's chances in another environment."

Because my novel is set in the here and now, a time when passing is passé, I needed to give my theme a contemporary spin. So I took the theme of passing and gave it a gay twist.

"Passing for Black" is the story of a thirtyish woman, Angela Wright, who leaves her fiancé for another woman. It's a coming out novel. For Angela, passing means hiding her budding lesbianism so that she can be accepted in the larger African-American community. Through her, I tried to examine the feelings we've all had-at least I have-of not being understood, not being able to fit in, not knowing where you're placed in all of the various identities and settings you live in. As Angela zigzags between her worlds, her goal is to find a place where she can simply be herself. The novel also probes issues of desire, family, friendship, religion-and hair.

"Passing for Black" came out three weeks ago, and a funny thing has happened on the way to the bookstore – few seem to know what to do with my book. Just as my main character is straddling two worlds, the book itself is leading a divided life of its own. In book publishing, niche marketing has become the new norm, and my novel is caught between two worlds-African American and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender). It's a familiar place for many of us who are black and gay or lesbian. Too often it seems like, to paraphrase the groundbreaking 70s feminist book ALL THE WOMEN ARE WHITE, ALL THE MEN ARE BLACK BUT SOME OF US ARE BRAVE, "all the gays are white, all the blacks are straight, but some of us are brave."

The cover doesn't help. My publisher, Kensington, has a number of imprints, including a hot and heavy LGBT line, and Dafina, home to African-American authors like Anita Diggs and Carl Weber. My book was published under Dafina, the black line. My cover-which I love-shows the main character looking cute but confused, her best friend, Mae, beside her. The jacket copy describes a chance meeting where Angela is consumed with desire for an intriguing stranger, drawn into intimate encounters that are both torrid and tender.

By page three, all of the sisters whose interest is piqued by the cover or who saw my book in Essence's list of sizzling summer reads or in Ebony's hot picks are going to find out that the intriguing stranger isn't a tall, dark and handsome guy. Instead, it's the hot, sexy Women's Studies professor.

Even odder and more confusing, because of the rapid rise of street fiction, my novel is frequently situated in the urban-street-ghetto-hip hop section of bookstores. Now I respect my girls Zane and Nikki Turner. I know both of them and am totally in awe of the way they've turned themselves into brands with their own imprints, and TV and movie deals. But my quirky little coming out novel, that looks at serious themes and has a mother-daughter relationship at its core, isn't street fiction. It's popular fiction.

Last week while I was speaking to a group of students about my book, a young man asked me about this topic. He then admitted that he didn't know the difference between "popular fiction" and street lit. So to school him, I read this paragraph from Nikki Turner's bestselling book, Riding Dirty on I95:

Paula began to move up and down on Cleezy, the sound of her wetness driving him crazy. "Faster." She sped up. "Faster." In no time at all Paula looked like she was riding a mechanical bull. Cleezy was in control, pumping faster and faster with each stroke, forcing Paula to keep up. Up and down she went, her titties flopping. Can you imagine me, with my horn-rim glasses and scholarly journalist background, coughing and turning 20 shades of purple, unable to spit out the word "titties" in front of those college kids?

Alright. Now, here's the other problem: My gay vague cover isn't bringing in the lesbians and gay men who would be my natural audience. In the few remaining independent LGBT bookstores and in the gay and lesbian sections of the chains-stuck in the corner in the back behind the coffee bar-that's where you find "Passing for Black."

At an appearance in L.A. a few weeks ago, I was sitting at a table full of my books. Two obvious black lesbians-it didn't take gaydar; they were holding hands!-walked right by me without stopping to even glance at my book. But what could I do? Drape myself in a rainbow flag? Scream out, "Hey, Ladies, I think there's something in this book just for you!" At the height of her meltdown, my main character Angela feels she's lost a grip on who she is: "In the modern melting pot, where race, gender, sexual and cultural identities collided, I realized that I was sick of the divided life I had been leading, always hiding, worried that someone would "read" me. I craved a place to just be--be my own damn self."

Linda Villarosa is a former editor of both Essence Magazine and the New York Times. For more info, visit www.lindavillarosa.com.