Passing Strange Articles

2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists

History Finalists

To see the finalists in the other categories, click here.

Guest post by Martha A. Sandweiss, Author of NBCC finalist Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

Researching and writing Passing Strange presented many challenges, not the least of which was making my two main protagonists – Clarence King and Ada Copeland – equally vivid characters in the book.

King’s life is well-documented in the historical record. An intrepid explorer and brilliant geologist, he led the fortieth Parallel Survey that helped map the West in the years following the Civil War and in 1879 became the first director of the United States Geological Survey. A talented essayist and celebrated wit,  he made his mark among the elites of Gilded Age...

From Bookcritics.org/blog :

On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its book awards for the publishing year 2009 at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in New York.

Biography:
Blake Bailey, Cheever: A Life (Knopf)
Brad Gooch, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor (Little, Brown)
Benjamin Moser, Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector (Oxford University Press)
Stanislao G. Pugliese, Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Martha A. Sandweiss, Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line (Penguin Press)

For the rests of the finalists, click here.

Martha A. Sandweiss's PASSING STRANGE continues to receive year-end honors as one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2009!

From the Chicago Tribune:

"Mind-boggling tale of a famous white geologist who secretly passes as black in his personal life in order to marry and father children with his true love-to whom he doesn't reveal this secret until his death."

From the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

"The strange and intriguing tale of a prominent white American from an old New England family who lived a double life in the 19th century, "passing" as an African American in order to marry and live with a black woman. Above all, a love story well told."

The paperback edition of PASSING STRANGE...

Featured Book for April 18th: Passing Strange, by Martha A. Sandweiss

 

Sandweiss takes a mountain of information and transforms it into a smooth, captivating narrative. Interspersed with the grand and poetic language of the day, the documented dialogue of King's correspondences lends literary panache to this captivating tale of love and the expansion of the American west.

To learn more about the author, read an excerpt or a review, click here.

Review: 'Passing Strange' by Martha A. Sandweiss answers questions about geologist Clarence King

By David L. Beck, Special to the Times
April 12, 2009; St. Petersburg Times

 

You've probably never heard of him, but Clarence King was famous once. As a geologist, he helped map the American West, and he organized the United States Geological Survey as its first president. As a writer, he had a bestseller, Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada.

He dined at the White House and had a genius for friendship; among his intimates were writer and diplomat John Hay, historian Henry Adams and novelist Henry James. Hay, who in his youth was Lincoln's secretary and who in the fullness of his years was McKinley's secretary of state, thought King the best man of his time and was puzzled by the fact that King's talents did not make him rich.

"I fear he will die...

Passing Strange's love story is a black and white issue

By STEVE WEINBERG
Houston Chronicle
April 10, 2009; Philadelphia Daily News

 

A few years ago, historian Martha A. Sandweiss read in passing that Clarence King — a Caucasian male famous in the 19th century as a surveyor of the vast frontier and a best-selling author about the land west of the Mississippi River — lived a double life as a self-proclaimed African-American male.

During an era when many light-skinned blacks hoped to pass as white, King, who lived from 1842 to 1901, moved the other direction, passing as black for some of each year without the knowledge of his white friends.

The cause of the reverse passing? Love.

In 1888, King had met and married an African-American woman named Ada Copeland, 18 years his junior. Copeland, who had made her way to...

Ta Nea Magazine Online
Thursday, March 9, 2009; Ta Na Online

To watch the video, click here.

ITa Nea (Greek: Τα Νέα, Translation: The News) is a daily newspaper published in Athens, owned by Lambrakis Press Group that also publishes the newspaper To Vima.