I had a really time following along with this one. It seemed to lack focus and like the narrator was tough to follow.

We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin is an unusual, inventive novel set in a satirical future South that is still dealing with stark racial injustice. It follows the black narrator's desperate quest to pay for his biracial son's "demelanization" process, which he believes will set his child up for a better life. It sounds grim (and it is) but it is also surprisingly witty and cheeky at times. If you enjoyed Paul Beatty's The Sellout, you will probably like this too.

This book took me several tries to get into, but once I committed it was hard to put down. It’s a deep commentary on what it means to be black, and what if there was a way to change that. I’m still reflecting on this book months later.

Man, I love satire and the overall theme of this book is *chef's kiss*. I wasn't the biggest fan of the execution but the fact that this is a debut blows my mind... An incredibly creative piece that leaves you with lots to think about.

How far will a father go to protect his son?

A father will do everything in his power to protect his bi-racial son, Nigel in a world full of violence, racism and heartbreak. This satire takes issues of race and throws them up against a truth that makes you wonder if the main character’s desire to turn his son white to protect him is the right choice - is it taking it to far to “be like them”?

Great debut read, I would definitely recommend this title and look forward to reading more by this author in the future, 3.5 stars from me.

Maurice Carlos Ruffin explores themes surrounding racism, colorism, police violence, and family utilizing a dystopian fiction meets political satire approach. The story centers around a father who wants to make sure that his biracial son has the best opportunities possible. He believes that the only thing standing in his son's way is a black birthmark that can be removed by a demelanization procedure. This father does the absolute most (making his child take medication and put on toxic creams) all in the name of helping to essentially make him as close to white as possible.

I felt major feelings throughout this book. Anger toward the father who hated his black skin so much that he didn't want his son to "suffer his same fate". Sadness for the son who is being taught self-hate and colorism. Oh and the father is also self-medicating to I can only imagine deal with the intense feelings of self hate and the desperation of trying to "save his son" so that adds another layer of sadness as well. While this book takes place in a near future, fictional Southern city, unfortunately so much of what happens parallels the current state of the world. Think about that for a second..how trash right?! Overall, while so many parts of the book broke my heart, I loved the shift that happens in the end.

Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s debut novel, We Cast A Shadow, is an incisive and necessary work of brilliant satire. Set in the "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 drives this novel, 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, those he loves. In that, We Cast a Shadow is not so much a work of satire. Instead, it is a chilling, unforgettable cautionary tale, and one we should all read and heed.

"Thus it came to him merely to run away was folly, because he could never run away from himself." --Babbit by Sinclair Lewis

"I sold my birthright for a mess of pottage." --The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man by James Weldon Johnson

A father wants to protect and provide for his children. However, many have used this excuse to cover their ambition. It is no different in We Cast a Shadow. However, the consequences of failure are much direr than a hurt ego. In a not too distant future, black lives are valued even less than now. Due to a major terrorist attack, they are forced to live in segregated communities that are heavily policed. Meanwhile, plastic surgery technology expands allowing people of color to lighten their skin tone. This demalanization process is expensive. Enter our protagonist, working for a high powered law firm in an attempt to pay for this process for his son. What lives, people and family will he cross to make his son white? This is a ominous journey filled with metaphors examining race in America.

Our unnamed narrator's story begins on elevation night. A hazing of the black lawyers that work for his firm. The winner could make partner, but the rest will get pink slips. Thorugh an embarrassing scene, he wins the contest and starts his story. Getting a partner would save his family and allow him to afford the de-malenization procedure for his son. He gives his son bleaching cream to lighten his skin and birth marks (the cover of the book seems an reference to the spots on his son's face). We then see the dire situation for him as black families are forced to live in small poorly funded enclosures with a heavy police presence. The tinge of this furure is too close to our own. The universe is well thought out. Like many protagonists fighting for their family, he loses track of what is really important and loses them in the process.

Ruffin is a master storyteller. We feel the heartrending tale as a man struggles to protect his family, but hurts them instead. The grieving scenes are partiucaly good. They are hard to get through. Furthermore, the tragedy of achiueving a financial goal only to lose the reason you are going for it is further heartbreaking. When he gest his bonus check and his dreams the results are so hollow.

An emotional roller coaster of a story with so many important lessons.

NOTES FROM
We Cast a Shadow
Maurice Carlos Ruffin

February 4, 2019Chapter 1

Half measures were such a waste of effort. If you were going to skydive into whiteness, aim for the town square, not the outskirts.

February 5, 2019Chapter 1

As for my overall opinion of the statue, whenever a white person asked me any question just because I was the onliest black guy in the room, the possible responses rattled around my brain like dice in cup: one, answer with anger; two, answer with humor; or three, answer with a question.

February 8, 2019Chapter 3

“The shareholders were just saying nice things about you.” She told me the executive committee had met up on the top floor, sixty-two. “They picked you.” “You mean I’m not fired?” “No.” A heat rose in my body. I had been so afraid. I wanted to breakdance at the news. Instead, I pumped my fist. “Wait, you’re on the EC?” “As of today.” She placed a golden doubloon in my hand. It had the firm’s name on one side and the logo, a crescent that looked like a frown, on the other. “What’s this?” “It’s yours,” Dinah said. “You’re the new diversity chair.” I laughed. “That’s impossible. The committee is all white.” You had to be a senior shareholder to be on the committee, but there were no senior minority shareholders in the firm. Ergo, the committee was all white. The exclusion of the firm’s minority members from the diversity committee wasn’t racist. It was simply a matter of protocol. Franklin used to say the committee was a regular rainbow coalition that anyone could serve on provided they were ivory, eggshell, or pink.

February 8, 2019Chapter 5

She always thought I was overcompensating in my attempts to protect Nigel. She seemed to think I saw monsters everywhere I looked, which was correct, of course.

February 8, 2019Chapter 5

Wouldn’t have made it.” We prided ourselves on not having car notes. My car was an unfortunate bit of forced inheritance, given to me as my father had no use for transportation. He was an indentured servant—had actually cut organically grown sugarcane—in the fields not very far from the plantation we were headed to. As for Penny’s ride, we’d paid that off years earlier. The minivan was safe for her commutes around town, but it shook with righteous indignation at being forced to travel at highway speeds. My Bug, although an antique, was a solid bet on long trips. I drove it to hearings in small-town courts all over the state without incident. I was sure the car would cruise the highways and byways of my nation long after I, and everyone I loved, went dust to dust.

February 9, 2019Chapter 8

America could cheer someone else’s brown boy down a field and, after he’d wrecked body and mind, into an early grave.

February 10, 2019Chapter 11

The man’s face lit up. I never understood what people saw in Crooked Crown, the purple-clad pop star who seemed to be everywhere lately, on shirts, on TV, in jail. I only knew her name because Penny had been a fan of hers back when she was the lead singer in that R&B group, the one where the members each wore distinctive black face paint. But that was before Crooked Crown visited PHH for lip thinning, a nose job, skin bleaching, and the Devil knows what else, a process called demelanization or a demel or a scrub. She had been a black girl from Baltimore. Now she looked more or less like a Greek woman.

February 11, 2019Chapter 15

Yes, the Founders had meant that all men were created equal, but they failed to include an index of defined terms. Ever since they drafted that screed, no one wanted to admit that Washington, Jefferson, and the rest of those guys meant only to protect the rights of white, landowning men. Through sloppy copyediting, our illustrious forefathers set off the human rights skirmishes that would beset the nation all the way to the present. 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.

February 12, 2019Chapter 15

I didn’t move. They couldn’t make me move. If I just sat, eventually they would move on to other business. It was a familiar fear, always present the moment just before I spoke in court. In that moment, I considered the possibility of failure, of humiliation. Jan tapped my shoulder, and I popped up like a piece of burned toast.

February 12, 2019Chapter 16

The physical act of remembering is a bulwark against insanity

February 12, 2019Chapter 16

Against the possibility that the insidious big white machine exists only in my head and in the heads of similarly delusional persons. That the big white machine’s carcinogenic pheromones and countless rows of razor-sharp teeth are the result of indigestion, a bad Plum, an inferior mind. In any event, my written journal was far more secure for posting these thoughts than some digital cloud where Uncle Sam, Anonymous, or God could get their talons on them.

February 12, 2019Chapter 16

Don’t we all feel that some substantial portion of our essence has made its way into the child? In this sense, the voyeuristic parent is really watching herself and hoping for some revelation. Or at least a tip.

February 12, 2019Chapter 16

I am a unicorn. I can read and write. I have all my teeth. I’ve read Plato, Woolf, Nikki Giovanni, and Friend. I’ve never been to jail. I’ve voted in every election since I was eighteen. I finished high school. I finished college. I finished law school. I pay taxes. I don’t have diabetes, high blood pressure, or the itis. If you randomly abduct a hundred black men from the streets of the City and deposit us into a gas chamber, I will be the only one who fits this profile. I will be the only one who survives. Is it because I’m better than the other ninety-nine? No. It’s because I’m lucky, and I know it. Somehow the grinding effects of a world built to hurt me have not yet eliminated my every opportunity for a happy life, as is the case for so many of my brethren. The world is a centrifuge that patiently waits to separate my Nigel from his basic human dignity. I don’t have to tell you that this is an unjust planet.

February 12, 2019Chapter 16

None of that even takes into account the fact that every black person is a de facto enemy of the state. They used to call bringing every able-bodied black male to jail for questioning racial profiling. Now it’s called excellent police work. Did I mention that blacks in most major cities live in fenced-in ghettos just like the Tiko? There may be beauty in my blackness and dignity in the struggle of my people, but I won’t allow my son to live a life of diminished possibility. I see a constellation of opportunity that those of my ilk rarely travel to. I see my Nigel at the center of those stars.

February 14, 2019Chapter 27

ADZE’s tactics led to a whitelash, which led to the world Nigel and I lived in.

February 15, 2019Chapter 30

There is a point of order that I’m sure you’re aware of regardless of whether you are brown as mud or white as milk, that you’ve encountered regardless of whether you’re male or female. In physical confrontations, a woman can get away with a lot more than a man. A guy who flinches while literally under the gun better be wearing a steel chest plate because he’s going to take one to the heart. But in all but the most extreme circumstances, a woman has some freedom of body. She can shout, dance, and even attack without fear of reprisal. This was what I believed. Of course, I was wrong.

February 15, 2019Chapter 30

Don’t bother on that. You know how it is when they come after us. Even if we fix this one thing, they’ll just find some other thing. They made that fence, that Tiko fence, bigger, so now the Coop is inside the Tiko.”

February 15, 2019Chapter 30

What had he told me? I would have been lost in that moment to condense it to a cohesive theory of the case. But it went something like this: You are an angel. Fate, in the guise of ordinary people, conspires to pull the wings from your body. To break your grasshopper limbs. To leave you crippled in loam. To maniacally adjust the shape of your skull. To bleed your life’s blood onto concrete. To destroy you, destroy your future, to destroy your children’s future. Other peoples could rely on our nation’s fundamental fairness as a starting point for any hopes or dreams they might have. But you, Black Boy, were born weak but breathing and tossed into an open grave. Three quarters of Fate’s work was done in our reaction to the world. In attempting to back away from hissing fauna, a rattler, or a jaguar, we find ourselves stepping off a mountaintop and falling to the jagged rocks below. Never bow to anyone, Sir would say, but don’t let fools bring you down. Respecting yourself means respecting even those who don’t deserve it.

February 16, 2019Chapter 33

No matter how hard you fight to protect our son, you keep going down down down and taking him with you.”

February 16, 2019Chapter 37

My palm was numb. I glanced at the check, more to make sure I hadn’t dropped it than to read it. But I did read it, and it was more than I could have dreamed. Was this the value of my soul? I wouldn’t even have to use the meager savings I’d set aside. I recognized that Octavia could have always done this. She could have done it months ago, even on Elevation Night. I’d fought so hard—for what? Nigel was gone. I would never see him again. There would be no procedure. No conciliation to a better future. I didn’t deserve the money. I never deserved it.

February 16, 2019Chapter 39

How many sacred Southern sons gave blood and spirit back to the earth for the Lost Cause of the landowners?

February 16, 2019Chapter 44

knot


Autobiography of an excolored man, Breaking Bad, and Babbit



Thus it came to him merely to run away was folly, because he could never run away from himself.”
― Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt

I sold my birthright for a mess of pottage.
— James Weldon Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And, I was really…I was alive.”
Walter White, Breaking Bad



All Excerpts From


Maurice Carlos Ruffin. “We Cast a Shadow.” Random House Publishing Group - Random House, 2018-09-14T07:00:00+00:00. Apple Books.
This material may be protected by copyright.

We already know this quest is doomed to failure, if not for the faulty premise (how much belief can one suspend?); the juxtaposition it presents is clearly a reflection of our present condition and therein lies its strength. Even though our narrator's plot crashes mightily, along with our hopes, we can take solace in its inevitability; it isn't the how.

It's knowing a man will lose himself - lose everything despite his best intentions to scramble up the wall; avoiding the minefields amid the flaws we so desperately desire to make disappear.

I loved this book! It's a satirical fiction which is highly relevant and thought provoking. And I must say an excellent debut.

Maurice Carlos Ruffin's debut novel, We Cast a Shadow is several stories in one. The first is a story about a father wanting to do what is best for his son (in his eyes) because his son has is mixed race and has a large birthmark on his face. There are many moments where I think that a father's love is one of the most powerful motivator of the father, and he will do anything, even embarrass himself, to give him what he thinks his son needs for a better place in society. A great father and son stories really pulls at me because I am a father with two sons and even though we do not face the same challenges as this father and son, there are sacrifices I will make to make sure they have a better life. A great deal of the novel is spent looking at the motivation of the father and wondering if you would do the same thing in his place if you felt so strongly that your actions will give your child a better life. I know that his motivation, buying his son a procedure to turn whiten his skin, is not really the most ethical of reasons, but we all have our motivations.


The second is the place of skin tone in the world in which the narrator lives. This novel takes place in the near future, and America has become even less accepting of people of color. There is a way that the narrator is seen as a pariah, that due to the color of his skin, he does not belong as a lawyer or as an educated person at all. The beginning of this reminds me of Ellison's Invisible Man, and even the opening sentences opposite each other. I see the influence of many great novels and parts of culture, but I would say that the reflection of Nabokov's Lolita much stronger than many of the others. Here is an older man with so much love (though fatherly and not relationship love) that he will do ANYTHING to make sure that he does what he feels is right, even if it is unethical and hurtful. There are even scenes that are similar between the two novels (the marital climax of Lolita and the scenes afterward is exactly the same as the marital climax of this novel). There are many things about this novel that can be discovered after extra readings, the names of places and things all having meaning, and Ruffin spent a great deal of time on putting it all together. It is a joy to catch some of these easter eggs and codes.



There are so many tendrils of story here, so much of the satire and the jokes, that I miss, and it is simply because I am not this novel's target audience. This novel is not written for white people, and though I can enjoy it, I also have to understand that it is  not for me. I have read a few of the poor reviews of this novel, and most of them are from people who do not understand or that the action and narrative makes them feel uncomfortable so they blame the book and the author for their own feelings. These people are the same people that are mad because of Get Out or Sorry to Bother You because it does not include them. There are people who dislike it simply because they do not feel included. The other problem is people who think that they understand and will go out of their way to explain to Ruffin what he is trying to say. It is the same kind of mentality of the people who like to touch the hair of black strangers. They do not mean anything by it because they think they understand the situation, but if a person of color tries to explain how the hair toucher is wrong, the hair toucher now will contradict and try to tell person of color about their own culture. I am in neither of these camps. I do not claim to know everything about the culture meanings in We Cast A Shadow, but I am not offended by this. If I did claim to understand it, I would probably be wrong anyway. The truth is that I know that this novel is important, that there is merit to the moral of the story. And even though I might night understand everything, I am not distracted from enjoying a fast paced novel with great, strong writing.


I received this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

We Cast A Shadow made me restless and uncomfortable. The unnamed narrator, a black man living in the very white world (possible future?), is desperate to save his biracial son. He will do anything to raise the funds to afford a procedure that will remove the dark pigmentation from his son's skin. Maurice Carlos Ruffin has magnified current tensions in his world creation, and though We Cast A Shadow is touted as satire, it hits a little too close to the possible. The pacing of the novel seemed a little uneven, the middle needed tightening. The premise was intriguing to me, and though I cant say I enjoyed the experience, I am glad of the read. I believe, based on my own need to talk about what I'd read, WCAS would make a good book discussion selection. As a debut novel, it has it's weak points, but I would like to read more from Mr. Ruffin.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

WE CAST A SHADOW by Maurice Carlos Ruffin received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly. It is an impressive work of fiction, though I fear that the biting satire may not be fully appreciated by many of our students. Ruffin focuses his novel on Nigel's father who is trying to have his son undergo an experimental medical procedure, demelanization, so that the bi-racial son's skin looks lighter. This futuristic novel is difficult to read at times due to its descriptions of hazing ceremonies, explanations of laws like the "Dreadlock Ordinance," and biting talk of the sacrifices various ethnic groups make in an effort to assimilate. Yet, this debut novel raises important issues in a unique and timely way; as one small example, book groups could contrast this work with the recent reactions to controversies about blackface in the news. WE CAST A SHADOW is certain to prompt discussion and could also serve as a Junior Theme text.

A father who at times feels that being black isa hindrance will do anything to have his son become as white as possible. Why. He feels he will have things easier in life. Also, it does not help that the son has a obvious birthmark. Good read, holds your interest. The story format made the book flow I recommend this read. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on my review.

Reading this was an experience. We have an unnamed Black narrator in an unnamed Southern town sometime in “post post” racial America. Race relations have bottomed out- police surveil Black neighborhoods using infrared cameras, they can legally shave people’s heads against their will, and 9 out of 10 Black men have done jail time for offenses as innocuous as arguing. These men and women do not have a say and barely have a vote- felons can’t vote and the children of felons need a voucher from an upstanding (white) citizen to earn a voting pass.

Our narrator is a lawyer who thinks he understands the game and plays the role that his company and society want him to play. He’s trying to be the best provider possible for his wife Penny and their biracial son Nigel. He doesn’t want his son to get caught up in the madness that’s thrust upon he and his Black colleagues every day. Unlike his wife, who believes that Nigel will be able to stand up to injustice and therefore can make it through life unscathed, the narrator is convinced that the only way to protect him is by having Nigel go through the process of demelanization. Demelanization is a very expensive, elite treatment that turns Black skin white, and he sees it as the only way to ensure his success.

I was consistently questioning the narrator and his choices. I didn’t trust him but I knew he had his reasons for making the choices that he did. He knows what he’s doing is wrong on some level but sees no other way. He wants his son to be proud of himself but believes that the world they exist in doesn’t allow for that. He sees the lightening cream and demelanization as his way out, and the only way he can prevent “the world [from being] the centrifuge that patiently waits to separate [his] Nigel from his basic human dignity.” And in the end, I came to understand the narrator. He had to debase himself and do so with a smile on his face in order to keep his tenuous position in a society that doesn't want him, and it broke my heart.

I really enjoyed reading this. It took work, it made me uncomfortable, and it made me think. I’ve highlighted more passages from this than I have in awhile and the words still have impact weeks later. In the end, this boils down to a story of a father and a son. It’s about choices and society and of wanting to provide the best life you can for your children but learning to accept that they’re their own people. Get this on your radar and stick with it- it’s worth the work and deserves all the accolades it gets.

Loved this book! It was great to read about the complexities of race with this level of absurdity and reflection on societal changes (that never really change).

This is a wonderful novel that asks important questions, like how far one will go to protect their child.. It is an excellent debut novel. The narrator wants the best for his biracial son, and there is an experimental procedure that may be a solution - it promises to save lives by turning people white. It is suspenseful, satirical, and extremely moving

A must-read book set in a dystopic near-future America. A satire of racial relations in the United States, and a powerful story of the lengths a father is willing to go to protect his offspring.

“We Cast a Shadow” by Maurice Carlos Ruffin is about racial satire set in a dystopian society in which the unnamed African American narrator wishes for his biracial son to have a procedure to make his skin and features “Caucasian.”

There are many laugh out low funny moments in this novel, but there’s also an underlying sadness in regards to the racial current in our society.

This story is thought provoking.

Ruffin paints a picture of post-post-racial America in an unnamed southern city which I will not add to places I'd want to visit on an imaginary literary world tour. The picture is bleak. Punctuated by violence, pestilence and the (further) marginalization of people of color, The City is too similar to most cities I'm familiar with, but nothing is really that bad NOW is it? Or is it? These were the questions I asked myself as the unnamed protagonist, a black man who is on the rise in the City does everything in his power to secure a brighter future for his biracial son.