Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of We Cast a Shadow, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the PEN/ Open Book Award and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love. The unnamed narrator decides, for his son - Nigel, to reach his fullest potential he must undergo a extreme surgical procedure coined demelanization to rid himself of the dark, pigmented birthmark on his otherwise fair, biracial skin. There is implied sex. Something went wrong. Painfully funny satire, the kind where you don't know whether to laugh or cry so you end up doing both. He is one of very few blacks that works there. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. We Cast a Shadow: A Novel (Hörbuch-Download): Amazon.de: Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Dion Graham, Random House Audio: Audible Audiobooks Refresh and try again. 0 likes. Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2019, Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 15, 2020. ABOUT WE CAST A SHADOW A bold, provocative debut for fans of Get Out and Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, about a father’s obsessive quest to protect his son—even if it means turning him white. The unnamed narrator of Maurice Carlos Ruffin's We Cast a Shadow has two great loves.The first is wife, Penny, with whom he enjoys a playful, passionate relationship. Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video! Set in the post-post-racial South, We Cast a Shadow tells the story of a man, one of the few black men at his law firm, desperate to pay for his biracial son to undergo demelanization, desperate to “fix” what he sees as his son’s fatal flaw. Like “As soon as Mama announced that I could no longer just give Sharane half our stock, the girl’s presence became scarce. New Orleans writer Maurice Carlos Ruffin on his new novel, 'We Cast a Shadow': about 'a very American city with a very American problem' BY SUSAN LARSON | … He takes satire to a whole new level. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. In that, We Cast a Shadow is not so much a work of satire. This is not for the faint hearted. PG-13. Praise for We Cast a Shadow Now he's up for a big promotion, one that will give him the financial resources to give his son the one thing that will save his life and allow him to succeed. Buy We Cast a Shadow: A Novel by Maurice Carlos Ruffin (ISBN: 9780525509066) from Amazon's Book Store. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love. Across genres, readers have found and championed work by... To see what your friends thought of this book, PG-13. Thank you to One World and Random House for providing a free copy via Netgalley. Through sloppy copyediting, our illustrious forefathers set off the human rights skirmishes that would beset the nation all the way to the present. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love. Several curse words. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love. My literary happy place – brilliantly cutting satire. Ultimately though, we see through the narrator’s actions and various description of his “fractured psyche” the true cost of the struggle that involves and implicates all of us as we look to the future of America and the world. Can racism even be satirical? we cast a shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 29, 2019 As with Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man , the black narrator of this rakishly funny and distressingly up-to-the-minute debut novel doesn’t disclose his name, because, he says, “I’m a phantom, [and] a figment.” Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of We Cast a Shadow, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the PEN/Open Book Award and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. You love and despise the Father in equal measure. Assistant Professor JD, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law; MFA, University of New Orleans 225-578-3021 profruffin@lsu.edu 212-S Allen Hall Biography. 14 talking about this. by One World. Jason Reynolds We Cast A Shadow Maurice Carlos Ruffin The Hate U Give Angie Thomas The Paragon Hotel Lyndsay Faye (white author) On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous Ocean Vuong . We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love. LibraryThing is a cataloging and social networking site for booklovers I confess. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s aptly-named We Cast a Shadow is a harrowing exploration of the extremes that govern the psyche of the oppressed--light and shadow, good and bad, white and black. For my part, I lost my taste for eating fried chicken around then. In the opening scene of “We Cast a Shadow,” New Orleans author Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s satirical debut novel, a black junior associate at a law firm is competing against two Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. My favorite thing about dystopian novels is how easily you can imagine them coming true. Yes, in Ruffin’s expert prose. If any of the seventy-plus delegates at the Constitutional Convention could have bothered to bring along a gray-wigged man of letters or even a lowly print shop owner, the document would have been clearer, so generations of people wouldn’t have spent their lives dreaming of rights they were never meant to have, wrongheadedly attending protests, getting beaten or killed.”, “felt guilty, of course, but for the love of Meadowlark Lemon, did the world really need another child of the diaspora with highly developed ball skills? At the opening of the book he attends a costume work party at one of the partners' home in hopes of maybe impressing them to get a promotion. His work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas. Maurice Carlos Ruffin's debut novel 'We Cast a Shadow' tackles race in a thought-provoking, unique approach. He wants the promotion so that he can finally afford to pay for a demelanization operation for his mixed race son Nigel. Unable to add item to List. His work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, Kenyon Review, Massachusetts Review , and Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas . Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. This book is taught in many colleges and universities. The novel was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin available in Hardcover on Powells.com, also read synopsis and reviews. Like “high-country accent.” ― Maurice Carlos Ruffin, We Cast a Shadow. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love. I laughed at racially insensitive jokes. What makes this te. The Yellow House: A Memoir (2019 National Book Award Winner), Caste (Oprah's Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents. January 29th 2019 Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s debut novel, We Cast A Shadow, is an incisive and necessary work of brilliant satire. ― Maurice Carlos Ruffin, We Cast a Shadow. Full content visible, double tap to read brief content. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s debut novel, We Cast a Shadow is several stories in one. It may simply be that I don't enjoy satire as a means of telling a story since I didn't enjoy The Sellout much either. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. We Cast a Shadow: Ruffin, Maurice Carlos: Amazon.com.mx: Libros. A black father loves his son very much, which is why he does everything to turn his kid white so he won't be subjected to racist oppression - this is pretty much the disturbing premise of this painful satire. Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2019. “Yes, the Founders had meant that all men were created equal, but they failed to include an index of defined terms. We work hard to protect your security and privacy. America could cheer someone else’s brown boy down a field and, after he’d wrecked body and mind, into an early grave.”, PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Nominee (2020), Dayton Literary Peace Prize Nominee for Fiction (2020), PEN Open Book Award Nominee for Longlist (2020). Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. We Cast a Shadow: A Novel (Audio Download): Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Dion Graham, Random House Audio: Amazon.com.au: Audible This debut novel explores racism in the United States through an unknown black man. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love. He is one of very few blacks that works there. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love. ― Maurice Carlos Ruffin, We Cast a Shadow. Maurice Carlos Ruffin's debut novel 'We Cast a Shadow' tackles race in a thought-provoking, unique approach. Jason Reynolds We Cast A Shadow Maurice Carlos Ruffin The Hate U Give Angie Thomas The Paragon Hotel Lyndsay Faye (white author) On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous Ocean Vuong . Start by marking “We Cast a Shadow” as Want to Read: Error rating book. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. He applies whitening cream on the boy’s skin to burn out birthmarks, causing young Nigel to double over in pain. One World; 1st Edition (January 29, 2019). We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. The premise was intriguing - a black father who is essentially trying to save his son from himself. It's been a long time since I read a book in first-person, so We Cast A Shadow was an apt choice, because the writing was quite good. Click the link to here more of my thoughts: I really appreciated the themes of the story but I didn't love how it was told. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love. This debut novel offers a bleak satirical depiction of a man mentally (and physically) warped by a lifetime of racism and brutality. Some of the dialogue is jaw-dropping, like when Jo Jo’s girlfriend holds out her hand to the unnamed protagonist’s half-black child and says, “Come with me my little chimpanzee.” How does Ruffin get away with that? “An incisive and necessary work of brilliant satire.”—Roxane Gay “You can be beautiful, even more beautiful than before.” This is the seductive promise of Dr.… I don’t know how Ruffin does it. What makes this text stand out is the dark sarcasm it employs to describe the cynic dynamics of structural racism, thus highlighting its absurdity and the maze-like logic of a hate that connects melanin levels to the value of a human being. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s debut novel, We Cast a Shadow is several stories in one. My actual rating of this book is 3,5 stars. Maurice Carlos Ruffin's highly anticipated novel We Cast A Shadow comes out from One World Random House January 29th. A very timely book given the national atmosphere with hate crimes increasing. The … We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love. I found myself alternately appalled and enraged at a world that would make such a solution desirable. This is the latest novel to explain and deal with the issue of racism in America employing fantasy, magic realism, dystopian concepts, call it what you will. Maurice Carlos Ruffin has been a recipient of an Iowa Review Award in fiction and a winner of the William Faulkner–William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition for Novel-in-Progress. At the opening of the book he attends a costume work party at one of the partners' home in hopes of maybe impressing them to get a promotion. The well meaning father here is trying to help his bi-racial son avoid the pain of being Black in America by seeking a bleaching treatment. Though ending in sorrow, you realise that being a parent isn't easy and especially if you have a racial divide in yourself. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. Please try your request again later. We Cast A Shadow: Amazon.es: Ruffin, Maurice Carlos, Ruffin, Maurice Carlos: Libros en idiomas extranjeros 3 personas están hablando de esto. The premise was intriguing - a black father who is essentially trying to save his son from himself. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. “We Cast a Shadow” by Maurice Carlos Ruffin is a powerful novel exploring racism through a satirical format. Maurice Carlos Ruffin's work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. I first saw We Cast a Shadow on @thestackspod's list of 'Read Black Stories' and thought it sounded intriguing, so I was excited when I saw it on my library’s audiobook app. Maurice Carlos Ruffin Signs We Cast a Shadow Photo: Clare Welsh We are absolutely delighted to be hosting an award-winning writer and debut novelist this Spring Break: Maurice Carlos Ruffin, a skilled wordsmith and a rising star in the literary world. In Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s first novel, We Cast a Shadow, the reader meets a complex and unnamed protagonist.The main character of this futuristic novel is an educated attorney who is “woke” to the restraints of American racism, but despite his tuned-in Black consciousness, he believes the capitalist arena is the best choice for any American. From Underground Railway, to White Tears, to Underground Airlines, to Sing Unburied Sing, among others, authors have eschewed reality because the subject matter is too painful to deal with and offer alternative worlds in which to address the subject. There is implied sex that is not shown. That said, I found the books plot muddy and messy, often finding myself lost at many points.