(Reviewed by JD Jung)
#CommisionsEarned
“In New Orleans, culture doesn’t come down from on high, it bubbles up from the street.” – Jazz Pianist Ellis Marsalis (1934-2020)
This quote that opens the book epitomizes these stories, as we meet New Orleans residents of all ages and gender identifications just trying to make it day by day.
I was grabbed immediately while reading the first and title story, “The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You”. We meet a male teenage prostitute who is just hoping for something more. I didn’t think that this one could be outdone. I was wrong.
New Orleans Author Maurice Carlos Ruffin relates these poignant tales with honest, cutting language, using the vernacular of his characters. Though the stories are often ill-fated, he manages to skillfully intersperse humor in many of them.
Such is the case of my favorite, “Ghetto University”. Here, an English professor who specializes in the works of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, resorts to mugging tourists in the French Quarter. He justifies his actions with absurd reasons, such as that he is doing a service to his victims.
I wish some of the shorter stories were longer. As I became immersed in the plot and characters, they would end, even though the conclusions made sense.
I couldn’t get the final story out of my head though. “Before I let Go”, features a woman whose house is about to be foreclosed. Though the house has been in her family for generations, she incurred debt while making repairs on it after Katrina. Through no fault of her own, every time she tries to get ahead, she seems to take giant steps backwards. This is happening as white people from other parts of the country descend like locusts to buy the house and others in the Tremé neighborhood. This story forces us to look at gentrification in an even dimmer light.
The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You is a must-read collection of short stories, and I hope to discover more from this author.
