Ruffin, Maurice Carlos The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You: Stories (0593133404)
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE - A collection of raucous stories that offer a 'vibrant and true mosaic' (The New York Times) of New Orleans, from the critically acclaimed author of We Cast a Shadow SHORTLISTED FOR THE ERNEST J. GAINES AWARD - 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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