The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Ruffin, Maurice. We Cast a Shadow. One World, Penguin Random House, 2019.

Maurice Ruffin’s novel We Cast a Shadow is a story about a black man living in a near-distant future American South. In the novel’s satirical landscape, racism has not gone away, just more unacceptable to talk about. Shaped by the pernicious form of racism in society, the narrator seeks to guarantee a better life for his only son, Nigel.

Told from the first-person perspective of the unnamed narrator, an associate at a corporate law firm, the novel opens to the firm’s annual costume party. Recognizing that the party was secretly a competition to determine which of the three black associates would progress with the firm, the narrator donned a Zulu chief costume and danced wildly in front of the white partners. In Chapter 3, he learned that his performance worked, setting forth an official track toward promotion.

In Chapter 4, the narrator’s meeting with his cunning boss, Octavia Whitmore, was interrupted by an emergency call from Nigel’s school. The narrator rushed to the school and wish his wife, Penny, they tried coaxing Nigel out of the closet where he hid after a classmate ridiculed him for using a skin bleaching cream. Penny, a white woman and a strong proponent of racial justice, scorned the narrator for supplying Nigel with the cream after promising her to stop. The narrator and Nigel entered a private agreement to continue using the painful skin cream, which the narrator assured his son was for his own good.

In Chapter 6, Penny and the narrator again lost track of Nigel, while attending a retreat at the law firm’s plantation-turned-hotel. Forced to call upon a bigoted bellboy for help, they located Nigel deep in the forest, mysteriously swimming naked in a creek.

To score diversity points with a potential client, the narrator recruited his friend Jo Jo to create a guerilla marketing video showcasing the narrator’s relationship with the black community. In Chapter 11, they traveled to the Tiko, the City’s largest housing project and the place where the narrator grew up. Jo Jo filmed the narrator shaking hands and hugging the locals, including the narrator’s cousin Supercargo. Having taken a large dose of the illegal painkiller called Plums, the narrator pulled off the performance despite his negative feelings toward the Tiko residents.

The video failed to impress executives at Personal Hills Hospital, the firm’s most desired client. The hospital had been the recent subject of bad press and protests for performing cosmetic surgeries aimed at making patients appear more white. A controversial procedure known as demelanization removed promised to permanently remove dark pigment from skin. The narrator saw the surgery as the best option for Nigel, who, despite his olive skin tone, had a dark brown birthmark across his face. After an unsuccessful meeting with the client in Chapter 13, the narrator left the hospital and ran into Crooked Crown, a pop star who had recently undergone demelanization.

Chapter 15 illustrates the narrator’s next effort at winning over the hospital executives. He joined the civil rights group called Blind Equality Group, or BEG, whose leaders once proclaimed, “We’ve got to ignore race to transcend it!” (142). Recruited by his cousin Supercargo, the narrator delivered a rousing speech during his first meeting, although privately, he criticized the group’s inadequate stance on racial inequality. The group’s tactics were contrasted by another, more militant group, called ADZE. Known for staging theatrical and increasingly dangerous demonstrations throughout the City, their presence had caused the Mayor and other city officials to respond by imposing tighter restrictions on the Tiko and all black individuals.

In Chapter 20, the narrator, Nigel, and Nigel’s friend Araminta witnessed what appeared to be a bombing at the Seven Myrtles Mall, where they had gone to pick up Penny’s birthday cake. As the three escaped the building, they saw the letters “ADZE” written on the wall. At home afterward, a worried Penny told the narrator she had seen him in the news footage. Before they could light the candles on Penny’s birthday cake, a swarm of termites descended upon it. In Chapter 22, during a BEG meeting, the Mayor announced plans to extend a curfew on the residents of Tiko and to deport any violator to the African nation of Zamunda. The announcement seemed to confirm Supercargo’s claims that BEG had other allegiances.

In Chapter 23, with his promotion nearer as a result of his BEG affiliation, the narrator and his family attended a lavish picnic held at Octavia’s mansion. Penny’s frustration over her husband’s new image led to a loud argument on the lawn, and she accused her husband of selling out. The narrator claimed he was only trying to provide for the family and blamed Penny’s whiteness as the reason why she did not understand what he was doing.

Chapter 24 takes place as the couple made a temporary truce to enjoy Nigel’s performance in a school play. As the family returned home, Penny found the narrator’s notebook while searching for her camera. She furiously confronted her husband for the book, which revealed his plans for Nigel’s demelanization. The couple fell into an argument, and Penny ran out of the house, causing the narrator to run after her. Outside, he found her lying on the ground, after being struck by a police surveillance van.

Part Three describes the aftermath following Penny’s death, which threw the narrator into a fog of grief and despair. In Chapter 27, he and Nigel ran into the hospital executive, Eckstein. Seeing another shot at closing the deal and thus his promotion, the narrator proposed the hospital sponsor a festival at the Tiko, reminiscent of those that Eckstein remembered from childhood. Eckstein agreed, and shortly after, in Chapter 28, Nigel received his first consultation for demelanization. Newly bolstered with the hope that his plans might yet come to fruition, the narrator entered a Plum-induced bender. Weeks later, he came to, while his mother staged a private intervention and convinced him to visit his father in prison. In Chapter 31, the narrator arrived at Liberia, where he discovered his father had lost his speech and could no longer recognize him. The narrator left “stunned by the realization that I’d managed to lose the same man twice” (249).

Learning that Nigel had been sneaking out, the narrator doubled down on his methods for administering pre-treatment injections to his son. In response, Nigel became more angered and avoidant with his father. In Chapter 35, the narrator trailed Nigel to an abandoned school where masked ADZE operatives were gathered. More desperate to ensure Nigel’s demelanization, the narrator hoped that the festival at the Tiko would be his final step toward promotion. Chapter 36 recounts the day of the festival, which ended with ADZE members attacking the crowd. Among the masked attackers were Araminta and Nigel. With no idea where his son had gone after the attacks, in Chapter 38, the narrator learned he had been promoted.

Part Four jumps forward in time by a few years. The narrator had learned of his son’s whereabouts through an IP address, lifted from a message Nigel sent to Jo Jo. Explaining how he had used his bonus to fund his own demelanization surgery, the narrator had been living as a white man for several years. In Chapter 40, after getting lost in the Appalachian woods, the narrator stumbled upon a commune where he discovered Nigel and Araminta, happily married. Nigel brought his father back to his cabin and explained how the narrator’s beliefs had hurt him as a kid, but credited Araminta with helping him find his way. He told his father he had forgiven him, and the narrator understood he no longer could influence his son. In Chapter 43, Araminta gave birth to a daughter, and shortly after, the narrator went home.

The last chapter, Chapter 44, depicts a present-day narrator living in a coastal town in Madagascar. Long estranged from his family, he reveals that he has written his story in the slight hopes of it being read one day by Nigel. He ends with a request to Nigel to “occasionally think of your father — even after my body has returned to stardust” (320).