FinlaterMeet Cliffy Douglas, the 13-year-old narrator of FINLATER, a coming-of-age love story set in racially-charged 1970s Cincinnati. First day of school, the bright champion speller from the Findlater Gardens Projects is promoted over seventh grade. In eight-grade algebra class, he is seated beside Noah Baumgarten, and the "Nigger and Jew" are drawn to each other, not least because they are wearing identical striped shirts. Children of their time, segregated by neighborhood, opportunity and skin color, neither boy has ever had a friend like the other. Cliffy is soon convinced that he wants to be Jewish, and Noah a black soul brother, to more fully fit into each other's lives. Deep complexities become apparent. As the two chum around the roiling city, their fantasies collide with reality, and both boys grapple for meaning and clarity beyond the very narrow ideas each has of the other's world. But what ultimately binds the boys is the difficulty each faces at home. Cliffy's world is turned upside down by the sudden reappearance of his dad, while Noah falls into desperation as he tries to save his father from a losing battle with mental illness. Both boys, to an overwhelming degree, are helpless in the face of events overpowering their childhoods, and find in each other refuge from the debris of crumbling families and shifting circumstances. They find first love – its sweetness, and bitterness too. The boys' trajectory is Cincinnati's as well. In many ways, their troubled lives mirror the – city's problems – its recalcitrance and inability to adapt to change for which there is a moral mandate, but only spineless civic will. Yet the boys learn a lesson the city blithely ignores even to this day: how to love in the midst of so much senseless hatred, and the ruins of indifference.Paperback: 300 pages First Edition (July 19, 2008) ISBN-10: 1604023953 ISBN-13: 978-1604023954 8.5 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches & 1.4 pounds Reviews"It turns out the new publishing company's debut is a winner, thanks to the spare, deeply affecting writing of Ruff... who has penned a unique and arresting novel about two boys in love."- Read more "Cast against the backdrop of tumultuous 1970s Cincinnati, Ruff’s portrayal of the ravages of first love is rooted in history and place." - Read more "Ruff's astounding debut, about gay adolescents navigating an era when skin color and class differences were cruelly polarizing..." - Read more "Two pages in and I was hooked on this writing… We feel the swirling, unformed passions of a child teetering on the threshold of sexual awareness. Lambda-shortlisted editor Shawn Stewart Ruff has given us a gem with this first novel, woven through with insights about oppression and prejudice, hurt and healing." - Read more “Few writers are able to relate a story from a child's vantage as keenly as Ruff: echoes of such writers as JD Salinger and Colm Toibin and JG Hayes are present in this tender little love story that offers finely honed insights into the impact of racial tensions on the sociologic changes of the 1970s. It is a book that deserves wide critical attention as well as a broad readership.” - Read more (search: " A Very Important New Writer: A Remarkably Sensitive First Novel.") "An unsentimental portrait of America of the 1970s is vividly and complexly rendered in Ruff's funny, ironic story. So finely drawn is Cliffy⎯the curious, wise and wondrous young hero of Finlater⎯he lives beyond these pages, in the reader's memory, imagination and affection long after the last word." “As erotic as it is at times heartbreaking, Shawn Stewart Ruff's debut novel is fresh, thought-provoking and compelling. Poverty, youth and desire collide in these pages, and we are there. Finlater is the work of a novelist whose career has only just begun." |