Absolutely absorbing, fascinating, and indispensable-Alice Walker'A work so fine, sensitive, and distinguished that it rises above race categories and becomes that rare object, a good novel.'-The Saturday Review of LiteratureMarried to a successful physician and prominently ensconced in Harlem's vibrant society of the 1920s, Irene Redfield leads a charmed existence-until she is shaken out of it by a chance encounter with a childhood friend who has been 'passing for white.' An important figur