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Well, I don't like the description of "chick's novel" which sounds like a putdown. However, I take you to mean that it is a novel about relationships, feelings, emotions, rather than a book involving a lot of action. I certainly agree with that.
For me, the book is very much about race rather than its being incidental. It made me think about the strain of living a lie, always in fear of being found out. Consider the comment Clare made that when she was pregnant with her daughter, she was terrified that the baby would show her racial antecedents. Just think for a moment about being afraid of that for an entire pregnancy.
Apparently Larsen originally intended to call the book Nig, but it was changed because the publishers were concerned about the outrange caused by a book they had published called Nigger Heaven. (This was in the Introduction by Emily Barnard in the Penguin edition.) The title she used was not as outrageous, but was just as much about racism.
Beyond the thoughts of the stress of living as one thing when you feel/know you are something else - which of course immediately makes me think of LGBTI people having to pretend they are something they are not, or Jewish people trying to survive in a Nazi regime - what does it say about a society that makes people need or want to "pass" as something other than what they are? We all like to think our society is a tolerant, open one these days and in contrast to the past it is. But only partially, and only really on the surface.
I think there is a lot more to say about the book, but I shall leave it there for now.
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