Review: The Gilded Years (2016)

The Gilded Years (2016), by Karin Tanabe, is a historical fiction novel. It is based on the true story of Anita Florence Hemmings, the first African American woman to attend Vassar College, a prestigious women's college, in the 1890s. As the descendants of slaves, Hemmings passed as white so that she could enter Vassar and finds herself in the elite world of aristocrats and capitalists. She is treated as an wealthy, highly-educated white woman until she got attached to the wrong person--who could unravel everything she risked to accomplish for a better life. Passing meets House of Mirth in this best-selling historical novel on how race, gender and class intersected to influence social mobility and access to higher education during America's Gilded Age.

From the book cover:

Since childhood, Anita Hemmings has longed to attend the country’s most exclusive school for women, Vassar College. Now, a bright, beautiful senior in the class of 1897, she is hiding a secret that would have banned her from admission: Anita is the only African-American student ever to attend Vassar. With her olive complexion and dark hair, this daughter of a janitor and descendant of slaves has successfully passed as white, but now finds herself rooming with Louise “Lottie” Taylor, the scion of one of New York’s most prominent families.

Though Anita has kept herself at a distance from her classmates, Lottie’s sphere of influence is inescapable, her energy irresistible, and the two become fast friends. Pulled into her elite world, Anita learns what it’s like to be treated as a wealthy, educated white woman—the person everyone believes her to be—and even finds herself in a heady romance with a moneyed Harvard student. It’s only when Lottie becomes infatuated with Anita’s brother, Frederick, whose skin is almost as light as his sister’s, that the situation becomes particularly perilous. And as Anita’s college graduation looms, those closest to her will be the ones to dangerously threaten her secret.

I read this historical novel for a graduate-level course on the history of higher education. I had no idea that this novel would bring back memories of my own undergraduate courses on African American Literature. The early 20th century was considered the "nadir era" where both legal segregation (Jim Crow laws) and increasing racial violence were common occurrences against African Americans. For example, Harlem Renaissance writers such as Nella Larsen ("Passing", "Quicksand") and James Weldon Johnson ("The Autobiography of the Ex-Colored Man") knew about the dangers of passing for American Americans of mixed-race ancestry. Some made this choice to achieve upward social mobility and to escape the racial terror that limited educational and employment opportunities for African Americans. Those who did pass successfully had to completely detach themselves from their former lives, including their relatives and acquaintances who might expose their hidden secrets. Tanabe adds to this literary tradition to portray the danger and loss that occurs when one decides to pass and never look back.

I was so thrilled to read Gilded Years because I could apply my background on race and educational inequality in a historical novel that intrigued me. Tanabe, who is also a Vassar alumna, does an excellent job of creating the setting for the Gilded Age. Anita's story takes her from her working-class neighborhood of Roxbury, Boston to the wealthy parts of Boston and New York City. The Gilded Age was a period of industrialization, the rise of modern capitalism, and imperialism abroad. It was also a dark, racist period in American history where African Americans were largely excluded from attending elite colleges. It is remarkable then that the real Anita Florence Hemmings (Class of 1897) (see picture on the right) represented one of the very few black women who was able to pursue an elite college education. Although she was a descendant of slaves, her light complexion was often mistaken for a Mediterranean look. Had she marked down "colored" on her application, her admittance surely would have been rejected. Despite this physical advantage, as the book reveals, her college peers start to question her ancestry weeks before graduation and her true racial identity is discovered in a tragic way. The real lesson then is, despite her academic accomplishments, not even Anita could escape America's obsession with race and the toll it would have on her family.

I highly recommend this novel. Meanwhile, I heard great news that Tanabe's novel may soon hit the big screens. Sony’s TriStar Pictures has won the worldwide rights to the psychological thriller “A White Lie,” produced by Reese Witherspoon and staring Zendaya as the first African-American woman to graduate from Vassar College. Stay tuned for further updates!