Help find a book for a Social Psych course

December 29, 2007 9:24 AM

Bookfilter: Books on prejudice and concealed identities?

Posted for a friend:

"I'm teaching an undergraduate class on prejudice in which I combine scientific articles on stereotyping and prejudice with a couple of novels that serve as vivid everyday examples. I want to change up the fiction I've used in the past. I'm looking for fiction (or even journalistic books) that captures the experience of what it means to be stigmatized because of one's membership in a particular social group. I'm especially interested in concealed or invisible groups where "passing" is possible, where people can sometimes disclose their identity and at other times conceal it (e.g., books about LGBT people, religious minorities, people with mental illness, etc).

To give you a sense of what I'm looking for, I've used "Black Like Me," and "Caucasia" when I've taught this class before, and was considering "Self-Made Man" this year, until I decided it might be too graphic, even for a college class. Can you think of other books that fit the description above? Thanks in advance."

posted by lassie to Writing & Language (17 answers total)

Roth's The Human Stain
posted by aswego at 9:35 AM on December 29, 2007

Malcolm X's autobiography describes the reverse situation when he went on his Hajj. It's pretty moving.
posted by Pants! at 9:38 AM on December 29, 2007

I think a brilliant book (if rather long) for this would be Hari Kunzru's The Impressionist. It's a novel set in the time of the British Raj about the illegitimate offspring of an Indian woman and a British man. The woman is extremely fair and marries another very fair Indian (both Kashmiri). Thus he passes as their son. When it is finally disclosed that he is actually an illegitimate child he is thrown out of the family and makes his way to Britain where he passes for white. Really a fascinating book.
posted by peacheater at 9:59 AM on December 29, 2007

I have not read it yet, but A Member of the Club sounds just like what you are looking for. There was a good story about it on NPR, but I can't find it right now.
posted by TedW at 10:03 AM on December 29, 2007

Ah here it is; it was on This American Life.
posted by TedW at 10:05 AM on December 29, 2007

Best answer: My Father's Hidden Life — A Story of Race and Family Secrets by Bliss Broyard. Fresh Air interview with Ms. Broyard.
posted by loosemouth at 10:07 AM on December 29, 2007

Response by poster: I appreciate all the suggestions so far, and will pass them on. I'm just popping in to note that, while my friend teaches extensively on racial prejudice and has included such books in the past, she was hoping to broaden her students' horizons to include other stigmatized groups, hence the paranthetical in the question (LGBT, religious minorities, mental illness). Thanks.
posted by lassie at 10:23 AM on December 29, 2007

Some Australian examples, looking at the impact of the stolen generations on cultural identity:

- My Place by Sally Morgan. She thinks her family's Indian, until she discovers that her grandmother is in fact part-Aboriginal and was removed from her family at a very young age for assimilation into white culture.

- Doris Pilkington's Rabbit-Proof Fence, about three young girls who escape from the Aboriginal mission from which they were forcibly sent to return to their home community. ~100 pages so might be a good length for a class.
posted by goo at 10:29 AM on December 29, 2007

Best answer: Nella Larsen's Passing focuses on two childhood friends, both of African-American ancestry, who can pass for white. One of them passes only occasionally--so she could get a seat at a cafe, for example. The other chooses to pass permanently and marries a white racist. The novel is about what happens when they meet as adults. The attraction between the women is never explicit, but is suggested and figures prominently in contemporary interpretations.
posted by whimwit at 11:26 AM on December 29, 2007

Best answer: Amy Wilensky's Passing for Normal: A Memoir of Compulsion might be worth looking at. The author has Tourette's and OCD. There's a particularly interesting bit where she talks about walking down the road and seeing another young woman coming towards her; they start to share a moment of recognition of shared identity, and then Wilensky twitches and sees (or believes she sees) the other woman thinking that Wilensky is not like her after all. I think it's a fascinating book - very well-written and insightful.
posted by paduasoy at 12:16 PM on December 29, 2007

James Tiptree, Jr. (legal name: Alice Bradley Sheldon) successfully passed as a man for about a decade while she wrote science fiction and corresponded with other prominent SF writers. One of Tiptree's short stories such as "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" in combination with relevant excerpts from Julie Phillips' biography of Tiptree/Sheldon would be useful for discussing gender.
posted by Drop Daedalus at 12:53 PM on December 29, 2007

Best answer: Passing, by Nella Larson is a novel that deals with African Americans passing for white in New York during the 1920s. It's also a major theme of The Wind Done Gone.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:29 PM on December 29, 2007

Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues seems to be exactly the kind of thing you're looking for. It's hir autobiography of passing as a man, transitioning before there was medical support for it (black-market hormones!), and so on.

Jameson Green's Becoming a Visible Man is not an especially good book (I personally found it a bit excessively didactic) but it get raves from the students of a friend of mine who uses it in a college class. They find it "life-changing."

Kate Bornstein's Gender Outlaw might also be of interest.
posted by not that girl at 1:52 PM on December 29, 2007

Jackie Kay's novel Trumpet, about a jazz trumpeter who, on his death, is found to have been a woman rather than a man. Explores the effect on his son.
posted by paduasoy at 6:03 PM on December 29, 2007

Angel at My Table by Janet Frame might possibly be appropriate - either in book or movie form. She endured shock therapy for a mental condition that didn't exist beyond a unique way of looking at the world.
posted by ninazer0 at 6:44 PM on December 29, 2007

I should add that the story is more self-discovery than plain discovery.
posted by ninazer0 at 6:46 PM on December 29, 2007

Response by poster: not that girl, I think she did use "Stone Butch Blues" at some point, so your instincts are spot on. Thanks also to everyone else who's responded so far -- I'm inclined to mark each answer as a best answer, since each of these books seems so interesting. Please feel free to toss more thoughts out there. Thanks.
posted by lassie at 7:12 PM on December 29, 2007