Title: We Cast a Shadow Pdf A Novel
Author: Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Published Date: 2019
Page: 336
“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. It is this desperation that haunts this novel and, in this desperation, we see just how pernicious racism is, how irrevocably it can alter how a man sees the world, himself, and those he loves. It is a chilling, unforgettable cautionary tale, and one we should all read and heed.”—Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist“Stunning and audacious . . . at once a pitch-black comedy, a chilling horror story and an endlessly perceptive novel about the possible future of race in America. . . . Ruffin proves to be a master . . . a fast-paced and intricately plotted book . . . The real draw of the novel is Ruffin’s gift at creating unforgettable characters. . . . He writes with a straight face, never in love with his own cleverness—there are echoes of Ralph Ellison’s intelligent, unshowy prose. . . . There’s no doubt that We Cast a Shadow, with its sobering look at race in America, can be difficult to read, but it’s more than worth it. . . . It’s a razor-sharp debut from an urgent new voice of fiction.”—NPR “Heart-wrenching and morally ambiguous . . . a challenging, thought-provoking debut.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “Ruffin’s name is the talk of the literary world.”—The Times-Picayune “[We Cast a Shadow] truly shines. . . . Gripping . . . it serves as a reminder that at the heart of politics and turmoil there is family, and that is what motivates us and gives us hope.”—The Michigan Daily“A full-throated novelistic debut of ferocious power and grace . . . a story that refracts the insanity of the world into a shape so unique you wonder how this book wasn’t there all along.”—Lit Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2019“Propulsive . . . We Cast a Shadow proves that the eeriest works of speculative fiction are those that hit closest to home.”—Vulture, 37 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2019“Inventive and shocking . . . One of the most anticipated debut novels of 2019.”—Los Angeles Times“A biting satire of anti-blackness in the US.”—Buzzfeed, 66 Books Coming in 2019 That You’ll Want to Keep on Your Radar“We Cast a Shadow is like a dispatch from the frontlines of the African-American psyche. Written with ruthless intelligence, it’s the story of a father’s love and how he tries to protect his son in a country that devours black lives through violence, incarceration, and poverty. . . . [Ruffin] can drive his story to the outer limits and beyond, and never lose the threads of bitter reality that make it so haunting. We Cast a Shadow soars on Ruffin’s unerring vision.”—Renée Graham, The Boston Globe “A powerful novel of just how far one father will go to keep his son safe from the outside world.”—Parade, Debut Novels Everyone Will Be Reading in 2019 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. His work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas. A native of New Orleans, Ruffin is a graduate of the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop and a member of the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance.
“Stunning and audacious . . . at once a pitch-black comedy, a chilling horror story and an endlessly perceptive novel about the possible future of race in America.”—NPR
“You can be beautiful, even more beautiful than before.” This is the seductive promise of Dr. Nzinga’s clinic, where anyone can get their lips thinned, their skin bleached, and their nose narrowed. A complete demelanization will liberate you from the confines of being born in a black body—if you can afford it.
In this near-future Southern city plagued by fenced-in ghettos and police violence, more and more residents are turning to this experimental medical procedure. Like any father, our narrator just wants the best for his son, Nigel, a biracial boy whose black birthmark is getting bigger by the day. The darker Nigel becomes, the more frightened his father feels. But how far will he go to protect his son? And will he destroy his family in the process?
This electrifying, hallucinatory novel is at once a keen satire of surviving racism in America and a profoundly moving family story. At its center is a father who just wants his son to thrive in a broken world. 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 fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love.
Praise for We Cast a Shadow
“A full-throated novelistic debut of ferocious power and grace . . . a story that refracts the insanity of the world into a shape so unique you wonder how this book wasn’t there all along.”—Lit Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2019
“Propulsive . . . We Cast a Shadow proves that the eeriest works of speculative fiction are those that hit closest to home.”—Vulture, 37 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2019
“Inventive and shocking . . . One of the most anticipated debut novels of 2019.”—Los Angeles Times
“A biting satire of anti-blackness in the US.”—Buzzfeed, 66 Books Coming in 2019 That You’ll Want to Keep on Your Radar
“Written with ruthless intelligence.”—Renée Graham, The Boston Globe
Casting a Light 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. 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. Mostly, as here, they are satirical, thusly carrying an undercurrent of rage, quite appropriate especially here. This particular novel has been compared to Get Out and The Sellout, both of which apply. 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. I found myself alternately appalled and enraged at a world that would make such a solution desirable. A very timely book given the national atmosphere with hate crimes increasing.A funny, poignant, and mind-altering book about race and acceptance. Maurice Carol Ruffin's book, WE CAST A SHADOW, is voiced by a father whose lack of self-confidence and yearning for his son's acceptance in the world is using every medical treatment possible in this near future world to make his son as white as possible. This misguided attempt to whiten his son is at odds with his wife and is so expensive that the narrator is doing whatever he can at work to move up, despite his extreme apathy for the job and the people who work there. His past begins to catch up with him and with his addiction to hallucinogens, the narrator views of right and wrong becomes more and more askew. Ruffin's portrayal of a man (the narrator) constantly teetering on the edge of not only a breakdown, but teetering on the edge or right and wrong is compelling. The man carries a core belief system that being black is bad and now matter what obstacles are put in his way and what rational thought is presented to him, he believes the only way his son, who has a noticeable black birthmark on his white skin, will find happiness in the world is if his son's skin is as white as possible. While his views are to the extreme and therefore flawed, the reader can't help but feel sorry for the man. The writing style Ruffin employs in the book is masterful. In order to help the reader embody living like the narrator, in a drug induced haze of agitation and confusion, Ruffin composes the book with that in mind. At times he is very descript, down to very particular details, other moments his skips part of the action and glosses over things character say. All of this is done with careful thought, so that the reader is guided through the story like the narrator lives his life. At no time, though, does the reader feel lost, just sufficiently jostled around. Challenging racial stereotypes and prejudices that people have a hard time shaking, WE CAST A SHADOW does what a good book should, entertains and charges the reader to reconsider their view on life. I highly recommend and look forward to reading more by Ruffin in the future. Thank you to Random House, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!Great read This book was touted as being in the same ballpark as Sellout and Get Out. It might have seemed like a good idea to throw this in with two such popular things, but for me it was a turn off. Though I’m glad not so much as to prevent from checking it out. Initial attraction was that gorgeous striking cover. Plus I was interested to see if it is indeed possible to write a good modern book about race. Sellout, despite all its acclaim and awards, for me didn’t do the trick. Get Out was a paranoid racist (yes, racism works in every direction) fantasy that jumped on the trend bandwagon at just the right time. This book, this absolutely terrific and most auspicious debut darling, actually works. The author anchors the race talks down to a very relatable and engaging father/son story and from there on its classic dynamics of familiar relations presented against the context of a racially divided (think exaggerated version of modern day US) social order somewhere in the South. The father, the well intentioned tragic narrator, is a black man who has done every possible thing to fit in and prosper in a society where black men seldom do, one so obsessed with white supremacy that many choose to alter their appearance to suit the social norm, including but not limited to going Michael Jackson white. The well intentioned tragedy comes when he tries to quite literally whitewash his young biracial son to as he sees it optimize his chances in the world. And so he sets off on this dangerous course while performing something of a balancing act between his career and his marriage, while dealing with his own difficult relationship with his father and all the while maintaining this delicate balance by chemical means and holding on too tightly to things he values the most only to watch it all slip away. It’s a mess, life’s messy. And sad. Positively devastating at times, especially towards the end. And mind you, this is a satire, so it’s also darkly humorous at times, particularly the first chapter. But what it is…is clever. It feeds the mind while it entertains and creates an emotional connection with characters, so that it elevates it above the usual casual glib aloofness of satires into something with power and meaning, something that genuinely commands attention and makes you think complex difficult thoughts. Turns out it is possible to talk about race, it just has to be done right. This book does it right. Forget gimmicky titles with Out in them and read this instead. Great book. Important, timely and just well done all around. Recommended.
Talent pdf
The Way You Love Me pdf
To Ride a White Horse pdf
Covington Billionaires pdf
The King Of Riddles pdf
PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY pdf
The Secret Billionaire pdf
The Billionaire& pdf
Mr pdf
Critical Failures (Caverns and Creatures Book 1) pdf
Quest pdf
Amy Cole has lost her mind pdf
Tags: 0525509062 pdf,We Cast a Shadow pdf,A Novel pdf,Maurice Carlos Ruffin,We Cast a Shadow: A Novel,One World,0525509062,African Americans,African Americans;Fiction.,FICTION / Literary.,FICTION / Satire.,AFRICAN AMERICAN NOVEL AND SHORT STORY,FICTION / African American / General,FICTION / Literary,FICTION / Satire,Fiction,Fiction-Literary,Fiction/African American - General,Fiction/Satire,GENERAL,General Adult,United States,coming of age;race;survival;skin;medical books;obsession;parenting;African American fiction;African American books;self esteem;self love;shame;racism in America;contemporary American literature;American literature;father son relationship;love;funny;humorous;relationships;relationship;son;father;family life;family;African American literature;racism;futuristic;speculative fiction;contemporary literary fiction;contemporary fiction;literary fiction;African American;satire;literary;novels;fiction,contemporary American literature; American literature; father son relationship; love; funny; humorous; relationships; relationship; son; father; family life; family; African American literature; racism; futuristic; speculative fiction; contemporary literary fiction; contemporary fiction; literary fiction; African American; satire; literary; novels; fiction; racism in America; coming of age; race; survival; skin; medical books; obsession; parenting; African American fiction; African American books; self esteem; self love; shame
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.