Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral recounts the story of a young Black woman in the 1920s who decides to pass as white. Ostensibly a coming-of-age story, the novel features a complex treatment of racial barriers and gender inequalities. While the trajectory of the novel is straightforward and relatively typical for the bildungsroman—young woman leaves home, discovers herself through a series of obstacles she must overcome, and finally learns how to live happily—the narrative is fraught with tensions about what it means to be Black and a woman in early 20th century America. Originally published in 1928, the novel is considered Fauset’s most important work, a notable entry in the extensive body of work produced by Black artists during the Harlem Renaissance.

The Harlem Renaissance was a profusion of Black artistic and literary achievements that grew out of New York’s Harlem neighborhood in the early decades of the 20th century. Well-known figures associated with the era include poet Langston Hughes, writer Zora Neale Hurston, jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, and performer Josephine Baker. While Fauset might be a lesser-known figure within the Harlem Renaissance, she played a significant role in its expansion as the literary editor of the NAACP’s magazine The Crisis, as well as the writer of four novels and numerous essays, short stories, and poems. She also co-wrote and edited a magazine for Black children, The Brownies’ Book.

Unusually for its time, Plum Bun explores the practice of passing as white without imposing a firm moral judgment on it or meting out punishment to its protagonist; the subtitle of the book, “Novel Without a Moral,” signals the author’s intentions from the beginning. However, this does not mean that the subjects of race or gender are treated lightly or simplistically. The author uses racist slurs and other detailed language to convey clearly that the prevailing attitudes of the time were prejudiced and ignorant. These racist views are expressed in visceral, unthinking reactions and in subtle, covert ways, as are opinions about gender roles. Plum Bun is both an engaging coming of age tale to which many readers can relate and a challenging exploration of the ways in which race and gender serve to define—and constrict—identity and opportunity alike.

Note: In the 1990 Beacon Press edition of the novel, chapter numbering restarts at 1 in each Part of the novel. British spelling is also frequently used: “colour” for “color” or “labour” for “labor,” for example.

Plot Summary

Angela Murray, who lives on an ordinary street in Philadelphia, is a member of the growing Black middle class, with the potential to rise above her circumstances as her parents had done before her. Unlike her dark-skinned father and sister, Angela and her mother Mattie Murray are light-skinned Blacks who can pass for white. Throughout Angela’s youth, Mattie takes her on shopping and dining outings in white establishments where her father and sister would not be welcome. While Mattie sees these outings as fun larks of no real consequence, Angela glimpses something more meaningful and more troublesome in their excursions: Whiteness, for Angela, comes to signify freedom of movement and power over circumstances. Racial identity is the central conflict in Angela’s life.

After the death of her parents, Angela decides to move to New York—not to the bustling center of Black cultural revival that is 1920s Harlem, but to Manhattan. Here she will attend art school, make friends with several bohemian artists, and pursue romantic relationships, all while passing as white. Unlike her sister, Virginia, who is proud of her Black heritage, Angela sees her race as an obstacle to what she desires in life, the aforementioned freedom and power.

After changing her name to Angèle Mory to distance herself further from her family and background, Angela meets a wealthy young white man, Roger Fielding, through art school acquaintances. He courts her lavishly, and while she doesn’t have particularly strong feelings for him, she finds his wealth and status attractive, a means to the end results of financial security and social prestige. She determines to marry him, rather than the lovesick Anthony Cross who has committed himself to the role of starving artist.

Angela’s courtship with Roger is punctuated by Roger’s racist diatribes against Black people, whom he sees as sub-human. When her sister Virginia comes to town, Angela snubs her, lest she risk revealing her true racial identity.

After many months, Angela is convinced that Roger is ready to propose—however, he proposes not marriage, but a sexual affair, keeping Angela in a love-nest and plying her with material goods that are beyond her means. After her initial shock and refusal, she ultimately gives in to Roger’s desires. She craves security more than respectability, which she reasons isn’t as important as the freedom she thinks she finds in Roger’s wealth and social standing.

After a few months, however, the relationship sours as Angela becomes more possessive of Roger. He breaks it off, leaving her lonely, but clear-eyed about the fact that she hadn’t really loved him. Despite a new job and new friendships, she cannot quite escape the anxieties of financial insecurity and lack of love. She remembers Anthony and decides that she has been foolish to deny her feelings for him. The two reconnect, and she falls more deeply in love with him upon learning his tragic back story: His father was killed in a lynching because, as it turns out, Anthony is also Black. Anthony denies that he is passing as white. He just chooses not to overtly identify as Black unless the situation warrants it. Angela decides to reveal her own secret to him, hoping that they will be happy together in their struggle to become artists.

However, Anthony reveals that he is, alas, already engaged—to Angela’s sister, Virginia, who is actually still in love with their childhood friend, Matthew. The cruel irony of the situation is inescapable, but Angela decides to throw herself into her art with the hopes of winning a scholarship to study in France, leaving her troubles behind.

She is successful in her endeavor, as is another (openly) Black student, Miss Powell. When the sponsors revoke Miss Powell’s scholarship because she is Black, Angela finally admits publicly that she is Black, too. Despite losing her scholarship and returning to Philadelphia, Angela is less restless than before and surer of her own true identity. She visits Matthew, who reveals that he, too, is in love with Virginia. Angela, wanting to make amends to how she previously treated her beloved sister, urges Matthew to confess his love for Virginia.

After her brief sojourn in Philadelphia, Angela travels to France despite being denied her scholarship, using donations from sympathetic white friends and proceeds from the sale of her parents’ house. In France, she paints and pines for Anthony. In the interim, Matthew reveals his love for Virginia, and Virginia breaks off her engagement to Anthony, knowing that his true love is Angela. The novel ends on Christmas Eve in Paris with Angela reading a note from her sister saying she has sent a wonderful present: it turns out to be Anthony, of course, and Angela is assured a happy ending.