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SHORTLISTED FOR THE ERNEST J. GAINES AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE STORY PRIZE • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—Garden & Gun, Electric Lit • “Every sentence is both something that makes you want to laugh in a gut-wrenching way and threatens to break your heart in a way that you did not anticipate.”—Robert Jones, Jr., author of The Prophets, in The Wall Street Journal
Maurice Carlos Ruffin has an uncanny ability to reveal the hidden corners of a place we thought we knew. These perspectival, character-driven stories center on the margins and are deeply rooted in New Orleanian culture.
In “Beg Borrow Steal,” a boy relishes time spent helping his father find work after coming home from prison; in “Ghetto University,” a couple struggling financially turns to crime after hitting rock bottom; in “Before I Let Go,” a woman who’s been in NOLA for generations fights to keep her home; in “Fast Hands, Fast Feet,” an army vet and a runaway teen find companionship while sleeping under a bridge; in “Mercury Forges,” a flash fiction piece among several in the collection, a group of men hurriedly make their way to an elderly gentleman’s home, trying to reach him before the water from Hurricane Katrina does; and in the title story, a young man works the street corners of the French Quarter, trying to achieve a freedom not meant for him.
These stories are intimate invitations to hear, witness, and imagine lives at once regional but largely universal, and undeniably New Orleanian, written by a lifelong resident of New Orleans and one of our finest new writers.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
August 17, 2021 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780593133422
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780593133422
- File size: 983 KB
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Accessibility
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Navigation
Table of contents to all chapters of the text via links.
Hazards
The publication contains no hazards.
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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June 14, 2021
Ruffin (We Cast a Shadow) takes readers on a rich tour of hardscrabble New Orleans in his bracing latest. In “Beg Borrow Steal,” the 14-year-old narrator recounts the aftermath of his Pop’s stint in Angola for theft. While searching for employment, Pop laments how his wife recently pawned the jewelry he’d stolen for her before going to prison, then is surprised to learn how she came to have a nice new car. “Ghetto University” follow James Young, a recently laid-off college professor, who resorts to nightly muggings in the French Quarter to make ends meet. In justifying his actions, James reasons his profits are “reparations for each time some Becky or Karen crossed the street to avoid my path just as I greeted them.” (By the end of the story, the author flips the script on James with uncanny irony.) While some of the shorter pieces lack punch, such as the two-pager “Cocoon,” about the son of an exterminator who leaves to be a fashion designer, the author fills most of the stories with humor, wit, and soul. Fans of the author’s exceptional debut will want to take a look. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.
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