We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

July 28, 2020

We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

In an unspecified City in a racist American South, set in a slightly futuristic time, the unnamed narrator works as a lawyer at a prestigious law firm.  As an African American man, he has been hired mainly to help the firm improve their multi-cultural image.  The narrator and his Caucasian wife Penny have a son, Nigel, who is born with light skin that gradually begins to darken.  Neither Nigel nor his mother are bothered by this, but the father see the darkening (which he refers to as “birthmarks”) as a racial defect.  He becomes convinced that Nigel must have a new extremely expensive (and painful) demelanization procedure which will turn his skin white permanently.  To increase his income, the father agrees to become the new multi-cultural face of the law firm, forcing him into increasingly hypocritical behavior and increasing his need for illegal drugs.

Although classified as a satire, there is nothing amusing about the book.  At what point does trying to protect your child through extreme measures cross over into doing harm?  There are some interesting plot twists, but overall, the story felt disjointed to me.  There were definitely aspects of the absurd and a number of surreal episodes.  The library nominated this title for the 2020 IMPAC awards, which was why I read it, but I’m not sure I would have picked it up otherwise.  It does have a rather cool cover.