Shawn Stewart Ruff

I love Cliffy! He is thoughtful, intelligent, sympathetic, and kind in a sea of ugliness and hatred.

Finlater is set in the projects of Cincinnati in the barely post-segregation 1970s. The 13-year-old spelling champion and hero of this book enchanted me from the start. Intelligent Cliffy skips the 7th grade and meets his "soul brother," Noah. The boys are instantly drawn to each other and are launched into an amazing friendship that becomes so much more and teaches them about the overwhelming show more power of love. They cling to each other in the face of racial tension and crumbling families. Cliffy is struggling with the return of a father he's never known, who he refers to as "Bikini Dad" due to his choice of lounge wear. Noah's family is strained by mental illness. The child's vantage point created by author Shawn Stewart Ruff is honest and true and the characters are unforgettable. When I did manage to put this book down I couldn't stop thinking about them. It's tender and raunchy, sweet and real.

Some favorite moments:

[elderly German neighbor upon discovering that the new man around Cliffy's house is his dad.:]
"He's no dad. He's a child. A man-child. You more a man that he is. He break your mother's heart. The schwartze with big pee-pees is the reason for all these black children without fathers. Look at his underwear, you'll see.' She had a point about the underwear. According to the laundry blowing on the clotheslines, nobody's dad in our part of Finlater wore such fancy drawers".

[Cliffy's mom when she learns he doesn't want Noah to see where he lives.:]
"The only thing you should be ashamed of is the fact that you're ashamed. We don't choose our families or our families' situations. Hopefully you'll do better in your life than I have."

[regarding an older boy who had foreign porn mags.:]
"He could procure Swedish Pussy, and I guess it went to his head." show less

Toss and Whirl and Pass is a compelling novel. Ruff quickly draws readers into the complex and intentionally fractured, at times hallucinatory narrative. One begins to genuinely feel for Yale Battle, wanting him to pull his life together. His clear-eyed insights into his “Tina” addiction prove that he is not totally lost to the drug, and the suggestions of hope offered toward the end of the novel hint at the possibility of redemption.

A quiet revolution has occurred in fiction for and about young adults in recent years. Keeping up with changes in the larger culture, young adult authors are writing grittier works, with a greater attention to social detail, using stronger, more realistic language that might be shocking to adults who have not been paying close enough attention to the lyrics of recent pop, hip-hop and rap songs. Since the breakthrough of Alex Sanchez and his “Rainbow” trilogy (Rainbow Boys, Rainbow High, show more Rainbow Road), there have been more openly gay and lesbian young characters appearing as well. Writers for adult audiences such as Brian Malloy (The Year of Ice, 2003), Alphonso Morgan (Sons, 2005), and Bil Wright (Sunday You Learn How to Box, 2000) have also used teen and pre-teen protagonists as a way to view the world through sharp, naïve yet sensitive, eyes.

Finlater deserves high marks as part of this later trend. Attempts to recreate the voices of young African Americans wrestling with their sexuality remain sadly rare. Author Shawn Stewart Ruff, editor of Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of Lesbian and Gay Fiction by African American Writers, has done it here with apparent ease. Only occasionally does he let a word or phrase slip by that takes the reader outside young Cliffy’s world view. His portraits of Cliffy and Noah’s relationship and their imperfect families ring true. In particular the scenes with Cliffy and his brothers, the totally devoted young Corey and the older, proto-tough guy, Dudley; their mother, Lacey, who the boys suspect is starting to neglect them in order to keep their still rambling father around; and their “Bikini Dad” Clifford Sr., walk a perfectly pitched line between touching and disturbing.

http://www.lambdaliterary.org/reviews/ya/03/16/%E2%80%98finlater%E2%80%99-by-sha... show less

Okay, so Smetch loved this book SO much that I bought it without even reading what it was about!

I didn't love it as much as Smetchie, but I didn't hate it either. I was attached to Cliffy as a character, and the writing was well done. It was just so dang depressing to me, from the ghetto and bakini dad, to depression and child abuse.

I doubt I would have purchased or read this book if not for Smetch's enthusiasm. However, if you like a sad story about a poor black kid who falls in love with show more his Jewish best friend along with a whole lot of sorrow in both of their family lives, then by all means, this book will be perfect for you. show less