Author(s): Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Short Stories | USA

A collection of raucous stories that offer a panoramic view of New Orleans from the author of the "stunning and audacious" (NPR) debut novel We Cast a Shadow

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.

Review: "Maurice Carlos Ruffin was born and raised in New Orleans, so the city's quirks aren't quirks to him. They're just home. But then, Ruffin isn't so much interested in New Orleans as he is in his fellow New Orleanians, which is to say his fellow humans-their frailties, struggles, furies, and heart strains."-Garden & Gun

"In stories chock full of New Orleanian charm, Maurice Carlos Ruffin navigates the intricacies of a region while commenting on life more generally. This auspicious debut . . . is a spitfire of a collection."-Electric Literature

"Sometimes a story-or any short piece of writing-can get by on the strength of a single scrap of language, be it an unusual description or surprising line of dialogue. In The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You-which follows Ruffin's novel We Cast A Shadow, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner and the PEN/Open Book Awards-the writer traces the lives of a cast of characters living on the margins in his hometown of New Orleans."-AV Club

"Ruffin turns his penetrating gaze on his hometown, the Big Easy, in a collection Publishers Weekly calls 'a rich tour of hardscrabble New Orleans.'"-The Millions

"[There are] musical structures embedded in these intimate, often playful stories. The pieces function as movements on a theme, each touching different notes and neighborhoods. A sense of controlled improvisation allows him to lay claim to his city. . . . It makes his book achingly truthful and incredibly accessible."-Los Angeles Times

"Maurice Carlos Ruffin's debut novel We Cast a Shadow was an electrifying satire of American race relations, equally evocative of Ralph Ellison and Franz Kafka. If his collection wasn't already on your must read list, 'Beg Borrow Steal'-about a son tagging along as his recently incarcerated father looks for work-will put it there."-The Chicago Review of Books

Author Biography: Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of We Cast a Shadow, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN/Open Book Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and International Dublin Literary Award. A recipient of an Iowa Review Award in fiction, he has been published in the Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, the Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas. A native of New Orleans, he is a graduate of the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop and a member of the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance.