we cast a shadow by maurice carlos ruffin

The father’s lack of identity threatens to engender itself in his child. Rather than instilling self-love or resilience in his son’s inner life, however, he fixates on the bodily exterior he sees demelanization-or Black erasure-as salvation. A childhood steeped in subjugation (his own and others’) produces an involuntary fear of Blackness and a constant, gripping terror that his biracial son could be perceived as Black. While this apparent hypocrisy is an often unsympathetic trait, it is the consequence of racial trauma. Despite his awareness of his sheer luck, he eyes other Black people with suspicion and derision. WE CAST A SHADOW (One World, 27) Grade: A A fear-driven, racially charged world is the land in which the narrator of We Cast a Shadow lives.

His internalized racism, however, yields a defensive egoism: He considers himself unique because of his lofty education and absent incarceration history-something that separates him from most of the City’s Black population who lack his good fortune. 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: A Novel Hardcover Januby Maurice Carlos Ruffin (Author) 490 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle 11.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook 0.00 Free with your Audible trial Hardcover 16.62 92 Used from 1.18 13 New from 12.94 2 Collectible from 34.00 Paperback 9.99 32 Used from 1.49 18 New from 9. The widely-acclaimed debut was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN/Open Book Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize as well as being longlisted for several other awards. Published in 2019, it is Ruffin’s first novel. As a Black man, he harbors deep self-hatred because of societal racism. Maurice Carlos Ruffins 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 is a satirical fiction novel by author Maurice Carlos Ruffin. In truth, his name matters: The narrator’s permanent namelessness symbolizes his indistinct sense of self.

He insists that his name doesn’t matter and describes himself as “a phantom, a figment” (1). While the entire novel is written from the narrator’s perspective, the reader never learns his name.

We cast a shadow by maurice carlos ruffin