OverDrive désire utiliser des fichiers témoins pour stocker des informations sur votre ordinateur afin d'améliorer votre expérience sur notre site Web. Un des fichiers témoins que nous utilisons est très important pour certains aspects du fonctionnement du site, et il a déjà été stocké. Vous pouvez supprimer ou bloquer tous les fichiers témoins de ce site, mais ceci pourrait affecter certaines caractéristiques ou services du site. Afin d'en apprendre plus sur les fichiers témoins que nous utilisons et comment les supprimer, cliquez ici pour lire notre politique de confidentialité.
“An incisive and necessary” (Roxane Gay) debut for fans of Get Out and Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, about a father’s obsessive quest to protect his son—even if it means turning him white “Stunning and audacious . . . at once a pitch-black comedy, a chilling horror story and an endlessly perceptive novel about the possible future of race in America.”—NPR LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD, THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE, THE PEN/OPEN BOOK AWARD, AND THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE WASHINGTON POST “You can be beautiful, even more beautiful than before.” This is the seductive promise of Dr. Nzinga’s clinic, where anyone can get their lips thinned, their skin bleached, and their nose narrowed. A complete demelanization will liberate you from the confines of being born in a black body—if you can afford it. In this near-future Southern city plagued by fenced-in ghettos and police violence, more and more residents are turning to this experimental medical procedure. Like any father, our narrator just wants the best for his son, Nigel, a biracial boy whose black birthmark is getting bigger by the day. The darker Nigel becomes, the more frightened his father feels. But how far will he go to protect his son? And will he destroy his family in the process? This electrifying, hallucinatory novel is at once a keen satire of surviving racism in America and a profoundly moving family story. At its center is a father who just wants his son to thrive in a broken world. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love.
“An incisive and necessary” (Roxane Gay) debut for fans of Get Out and Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, about a father’s obsessive quest to protect his son—even if it means turning him white “Stunning and audacious . . . at once a pitch-black comedy, a chilling horror story and an endlessly perceptive novel about the possible future of race in America.”—NPR LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD, THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE, THE PEN/OPEN BOOK AWARD, AND THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE WASHINGTON POST “You can be beautiful, even more beautiful than before.” This is the seductive promise of Dr. Nzinga’s clinic, where anyone can get their lips thinned, their skin bleached, and their nose narrowed. A complete demelanization will liberate you from the confines of being born in a black body—if you can afford it. In this near-future Southern city plagued by fenced-in ghettos and police violence, more and more residents are turning to this experimental medical procedure. Like any father, our narrator just wants the best for his son, Nigel, a biracial boy whose black birthmark is getting bigger by the day. The darker Nigel becomes, the more frightened his father feels. But how far will he go to protect his son? And will he destroy his family in the process? This electrifying, hallucinatory novel is at once a keen satire of surviving racism in America and a profoundly moving family story. At its center is a father who just wants his son to thrive in a broken world. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love.
En raison de restrictions imposées par l'éditeur, la bibliothèque n'est pas en mesure d'acheter des exemplaires supplémentaires de ce titre et nous vous présentons toutes nos excuses si la liste d'attente est longue. N'oubliez pas de regarder s'il existe d'autres exemplaires, car d'autres éditions sont peut-être disponibles.
En raison de restrictions imposées par l'éditeur, la bibliothèque n'est pas en mesure d'acheter des exemplaires supplémentaires de ce titre et nous vous présentons toutes nos excuses si la liste d'attente est longue. N'oubliez pas de regarder s'il existe d'autres exemplaires, car d'autres éditions sont peut-être disponibles.
My name doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that I’m a phantom, a figment, a man who was mistaken for waitstaff twice that night—odd, given my outfit. I managed to avoid additional embarrassments by wallflowering in the shadow of the grand staircase. Their cheeks pink from Southern Comfort, the partners—or shareholders, as the firm called them—stood chatting in clusters around the dining room.
I had been invited by my law firm’s leaders to attend their annual party at Octavia Whitmore’s mansion on the Avenue of Streetcars. It was a highlight of my life, an honor for a lowly associate just to be invited, although I was surprised to be told to show up in a costume.
Rough fabric chafed against my collarbone. I was dressed as a Roman centurion. I had rented the mega-deluxe option, no expense spared: full tunic of lamb’s wool, leather sandals, and five—count ’em, five—Hollywood-prop-grade weapons: a sword, a javelin, a bow and arrow, a shield, and a dagger. I never knew that Roman soldiers used daggers. But the costume guy assured me that they did too use daggers, the dagger being the preferred weapon of choice for when shit got real, which apparently it did from time to time.
The first floor of Octavia’s mansion was a series of large rooms. Playful notes of sandalwood and jasmine lingered in the foyer. I spotted my fellow black associate Franklin beyond that entryway. Franklin, who got white-girl drunk at every firm function, karaoked “I Feel Pretty” into a microphone. Franklin had come wearing the perfect icebreaker. He wore a white smock and a black bow tie, the uniform of every black busboy and waiter at every old-line restaurant in the City. Café de Réfugiés, Carnation Room, Pierre’s—no, not Pierre’s; there were no brothers at Pierre’s. I wasn’t sure what must have been more mortifying for Franklin: that he was singing so poorly or that no one paid him any mind. It couldn’t have helped that he was too black to be pretty.
My frenemy, good ol’ back-slapping Riley, was bent over a table giving the managing shareholder, Jack Armbruster, a foot massage. Sweat made Riley’s bald head glow. He looked like a scoop of chocolate ice cream melting under the parlor lights. Riley was dressed as a parish prison inmate, which rankled my sense of propriety. They saw enough of us dressed that way in news reports. However, I had to admit it was an impressive getup. He wore a Day-Glo orange jumpsuit, and even a fake chest tattoo. He carried clinking leg shackles slung over his shoulder, as if ready to reincarcerate himself on request.
Riley was working the old fart’s feet, feet so gnarly they seemed like roots ripped from the field behind the mansion. He dabbed his dome with a handkerchief. Was a promotion and bonus worth the kind of humiliation Franklin and Riley were undergoing? Confetti rained down on the junior shareholders in the adjacent parlor. You betcha.
My son Nigel’s procedure would be expensive. After feeding the snarling, three-headed beast of mortgage, utilities, and private school tuition, I only managed to pocket a few copper coins each month. But if I were promoted, I would earn a fat bonus, and Nigel would finally get a normal face, over his mother’s objections.
I idled on the sidelines, nursing a rum and Coke, which, in turn, nursed my ever-present migraine (thankfully, almost down for the night). I had lost count of how many drinks I’d had over the last few hours, which...
Critiques-
Starred review from October 1, 2018 Ruffin’s brilliant, semisatirical debut stars an unnamed narrator who’s all but consumed by his blackness. Forced to become the “committed to diversity” face of his law firm and the pawn of an insidious ad campaign headed by powerful, flirtatious shareholder Octavia Whitmore, the narrator suffers through one indignity after another. He endures a routinely racist police stop and learns that Octavia “fantasized about wearing blackface” and then there’s the historical revisionism at the school his mixed-race teenage son Nigel attends, where teachers insist that “every schoolboy knows the Civil War didn’t start because of slavery.” The narrator only wants Nigel to be spared the dread of being young and black in America. In fact, he’s been forcing Nigel to apply skin-lightening cream over the objections of his wife, Penny, and is planning to submit Nigel to an experimental plastic surgery procedure that he hopes will visibly erase his heritage and break the long chain of prisons, prejudice, and limited career options that characterize the narrator’s own forebears (his father is incarcerated, a fact that brings the narrator nothing but shame). And yet this is only the setup for a story that suddenly incorporates the violent interventions of a militarized cell of protesters, and hastens the narrator, Nigel, Penny, and Octavia toward a set of separate fates that are both harrowing and inevitable. Though Ruffin’s novel is in the vein of satires like Paul Beatty’s The Sellout and the film Get Out, it is more bracingly realistic in rendering the divisive policies of contemporary America, making for a singular and unforgettable work of political art. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.
Tous les exemplaires de ce titre, y compris ceux qui ont été transférés sur des appareils portables et autres supports, doivent être supprimés ou détruits une fois la période d'emprunt écoulée.
Recommandez à votre bibliothèque qu'elle ajoute ce titre à la collection numérique.
Plus de détails
Disponibilité limitée
La disponibilité peut changer durant le mois selon le budget de la bibliothèque.
est disponible pendant jours.
Une fois que la lecture débute, vous avez heures pour visionner le titre.
Permission
Le format OverDrive de ce livre électronique comporte ne narration professionnelle qui joue pendant que vous lisez dans votre navigateur. Apprenez-en plus ici.
Réservations
Nombre total de retenues:
Accès restreint
Certaines options de formatage ont été désactivées. Il est possible que vous voyiez d'autres options de téléchargement en dehors de ce réseau.
Bahreïn, Égypte, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israël, Jordanie, Koweït, Liban, Mauritanie, Maroc, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Arabie saoudite, Soudan, République arabe syrienne, Tunisie, Turquie, Émirats arabes unis, et le Yémen
Vous avez atteint votre limite de commandes à la bibliothèque pour les titres numériques.
Pour faire de la place à plus d'emprunts, vous pouvez retourner des titres à partir de votre page Emprunts.
Limite d'emprunts atteinte
Vous avez emprunté et rendu un nombre excessif d'articles sur votre compte pendant une courte période de temps. Essayez de nouveau dans quelques jours.
Il ne reste plus d'exemplaire de cette parution. Veuillez essayer d'emprunter ce titre de nouveau lorsque la prochaine parution sera disponible.
| Se connecter
Sur la prochaine page, on vous demandera de vous connecter à votre compte de bibliothèque.
Si c'est la première fois que vous sélectionnez « Envoyer à mon NOOK », vous serez redirigé sur une page de Barnes & Noble pour vous connecter à (ou créer) votre compte NOOK. Vous devriez n'avoir qu'à vous connecter une seule fois à votre compte NOOK afin de le relier à votre compte de bibliothèque. Après cette étape unique, les publications périodiques seront automatiquement envoyées à votre compte NOOK lorsque vous sélectionnez « Envoyer à mon NOOK ».
La première fois que vous sélectionnez « Send to NOOK » (Envoyer à mon NOOK), vous serez redirigé sur la page de Barnes & Nobles pour vous connecter à (ou créer) votre compte NOOK. Vous devriez n'avoir qu'à vous connecter une seule fois à votre compte NOOK afin de le relier à votre compte de bibliothèque. Après cette étape unique, les publications périodiques seront automatiquement envoyées à votre compte NOOK lorsque vous sélectionnez « Send to NOOK » (Envoyer à mon NOOK).
Vous pouvez lire des publications périodiques sur n'importe quelle tablette NOOK ou dans l'application de lecture NOOK gratuite pour iOS, Android ou Windows 8.
Votre appareil n’aura plus accès à la bibliothèque numérique après le 30 octobre.
Nous apportons les mises à jour de sécurité nécessaires qui empêcheront cet appareil d’avoir accès à la bibliothèque numérique à partir du 30 octobre 2020.
Narrator Dion Graham gives an adrenaline-filled narration of a father's obsessive drive to save his son from being marked for life. With darkly comic singled-mindedness, the nameless black protagonist pursues a promotion at his law firm that would finance the removal of the birthmark spreading across the face of his otherwise "perfectly white" biracial son. Graham's reading--relentless and frenetic from word one--may initially grate on listeners. However, as the story develops, its suitability to the character and his situation will become more and more apparent. Set in an alternative America too close for comfort at times to the current one, this novel is a chilling spin on what "post-racial" looks like in a world that refuses to admit its racism. K.W. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
