Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | We Cast a Shadow | 2019 | Maurice Carlos Ruffin | Buy |
| 2 | The American Daughters | 2024 | Maurice Carlos Ruffin | Buy |
Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s two novels take very different approaches to questions of race in America. We Cast a Shadow (2019) is set in a near-future version of the American South where skin lightening procedures are common and racial discrimination has become even more explicit. The novel follows an unnamed narrator whose desperation to protect his son leads him down increasingly disturbing paths.
The American Daughters (2024) moves to the nineteenth century, telling a story rooted in the era of slavery. Both books reflect Ruffin’s interest in how race shapes American life, but they do so from opposite ends of the literary spectrum.