Finlater
By Shawn Stewart Ruff
If you’ve ever taken a writing class,
you’ll probably remember being told "write about what you know." Everyone knows about coming-of-age, we all experience it, so it’s one of the most prevalent subjects in American literature. Yet, it’s also become cliché — especially gay coming-of-age stories. So when I picked up Shawn Stewart Ruff’s debut novel Finlater, I was prepared for predictability. What I got was something completely different, something special.
Cliffy Douglas is black. Noah Baumgarten is Jewish. They’re gay, in their early teens and coming-of-age in the hate-mongering 1970s. Racism. Bigotry. Hatred. Homophobia.
Predictable?
Perhaps, but Ruff expertly buries these elements just under the surface, drawing more on the deep-rooted insecurities, complexities and flaws of the characters, particularly his protagonist Cliffy.
Cliffy is young, bright and hardened by his surroundings, and yet as fragile as daybreak. Besides his mother, he keeps the world at a distance and he would do just about anything to get out of the Findlater Gardens Projects. Then two seemingly unrelated events occur in Cliffy’s life that dramatically alter it: his abusive absentee father returns and he finds himself in a promiscuous relationship with his friend Noah. When Noah’s father’s health dwindles and they are suddenly whisked away to New York City for an indeterminate amount of time, Cliffy realizes and, while already dealing with oppression, fears his true feelings for Noah.
Ruff develops Cliffy’s character naturally, without puffiness or pretention. –The anger in her eyes I would forever see, her hand lifting and swinging toward me … The tears blurred her in my eyes and I would never again see her the same. Ruff also develops Cliffy and Noah’s relationship honestly and compassionately. -His arms relaxed and he lay on top of me, his head lowering and lips brushing the side of my face as his head wedged beside mine. "It never felt like that. I never did all we did. I never kissed like we kiss." –His white toes against my yellow ones sent waves of tingles that changed the way my eyes saw.
In relation to Cliffy, the supporting characters are three-dimensional and honestly depicted. –I was surprised to see him sitting on the sofa in his exotic underwear, legs cocked open, his attention glued to a bowling tournament on the fuzzy, crackling RCA. Like he’d been there all along, a daddy centerfold in our living room, only we hadn’t noticed. –That’s what I liked about Delrico, he wasn’t hurtful, even if he had killed his sister, and even if he could be spiteful.
Ruff’s descriptive prose is delicately honest and vivid so that you feel like you’re physically drawn into the book with the characters, experiencing what they’re experiencing — you can smell the alcohol and musk on Cliffy’s father, see the translucent silky-fine hair on Noah’s lower back and feel the burn of Mr. Coursey’s blatant bigotry.
Finlater isn’t just about race, social status or sexuality … It’s foremost and simply about one boy’s journey into manhood, as a coming-of-age tale should be. Ruff genuinely turns a gay boy into a gay man using the irony of fathers and sons, and we all shall be the more appreciative of the beauty of the transition.
And truly, you will find that we all have loved as Cliffy has loved.