The thought provoking and timely story about the marriage of a middle-class Black couple whose lives are torn apart when one of them is sent to jail for a crime they did not commit.
The book tells the story of a young woman named Pecola who grows up during the years following the Great Depression. Set in 1941, the story tells that due to her mannerisms and dark skin, she is consistently regarded as "ugly" by society, which fuels her desire for the titular, blue eyes that she sees on the White people around her.
Set in the 1960s, the novel follows Elwood Curtis, a studious African American from Tallahassee with a sense of justice, who is adjudicated delinquent and sent to Nickel Academy, a juvenile reformatory in Eleanor, Florida, after riding in a stolen vehicle to attend university classes.
This book details the life of a mixed-race woman living in New York City. The title refers to the concept of "racial passing" and transformative relationship between blackness and whiteness, both on a personal and social level.