Maurice Carlos Ruffin's 'American Daughters' Confronts the Legacy of Slavery

Historical fiction has long been associated with the exaggerated, unnecessary, and myopic nostalgia that permeates books like Margaret Mitchell's “Gone with the Wind.” But today the genre is best known for its capacity for provocative interrogation. A sublime example of this form is, of course, Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved.” And just last year, two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward looked back to write “Let Us Descend.” These examples concern the still-open American wounds caused by the institution of slavery and its legacy. Now someone with a lawyer's training and a heart for telling stories joins this chorus.

With his bold and ambitious third work of fiction, “The American Daughters,” Maurice Carlos Ruffin approaches the historical novel from a biased point of view. After putting aside his law career to pursue creative writing, Ruffin published his first novel, “We Cast a Shadow.” in 2019. A deeply satirical novel, attacking racism, it was set in an unnamed South American city that resembled his hometown of New Orleans. Her 2021 book, “Those Who Don't Say They Love You,” was an evocative love letter to New Orleans, filled with contemporary stories that captured the city's rhythm and blues. Given these works revolving around New Orleans and the lives of its black residents, it's no surprise that Ruffin is taking a turn to confront the past.

An antebellum novel set in Louisiana, primarily in the French Quarter of New Orleans, “The American Daughters” tells the story of a mother and daughter, Sanite and Ady. The two are sold on the banks of the Mississippi River to serve wealthy landowner John du Marche at his French Quarter residence. This arrangement offers a respite from the grueling physical work upriver on the Du Marche plantation; However, psychological dangers such as isolation and sexual violence lurk in the city. There is no way to escape sadism under slavery.

Ruffin creates an intimate and atmospheric portrait of life in New Orleans through interior scenes torn between opulence and abuse. He brings to life the lively energy of the streets of the French Quarter, filled with characters both nefarious and benevolent. The tension between these two worlds reflects the times; freedom lingers just outside the patio door.

Indeed, liberation awaits. Eager to move the plot forward, Ruffin assumes a brisk pace as Ady and Sanite's bleak experience in New Orleans leads to an unexpectedly simple escape. Life on the Run offers an opportunity to develop the women's backstory before mother and daughter are once again bound into slavery in what Ruffin throughout the book calls “the slave labor camp, also known as a plantation.” . It's a verbal tic that seems exaggerated until you remember that Ruffin has revealed his puppeteer strings in the prologue. Exaggerated or trite language, such as describing an unexpected ability as “hope-like,” is not a sign of clichéd writing in the case of “The American Daughters.” They are visual markers within a text that demands interrogation.

The reason for this active detective work is that Ruffin himself asks the reader to question the text. In his prologue he makes it clear that what follows are stories within stories. It offers notes from a researcher's archives that include a translated fragment of a historical document and a transcript of a conversation about a book that shares the name of Ruffin's novel. He establishes an outside perspective and awareness of the novel as a story within a story. He shares a quote from a 2017 interview with a distant relative of the real-life Ady that reads: “Now I never lied. I admitted to the world I made to fill in the gaps and complete the narrative. By this time, the book had been reprinted twice. I downplayed my involvement because I never wanted all the fuss to be about me. Was his story, do you feel me? The transcription (a stylistic device that indicates inspiration from Margaret Atwood's “The Handmaid's Tale”) makes it clear that “American Daughters” is compromised. It is a story that has been borrowed, rewritten and passed off as fiction when it is a combination of truth and fantasy.

As they flee du Marche, Ady and Sanite recognize the impossibility of freedom in a world that does not grant them a place to live autonomously without fear of violence. Venting to Ady after being caught and returned to Du Marche's clutches, Sanité reflects: “All I ever wanted was a life with a house and for you and your father not to be bothered by white people. But the older I get, it seems like that's not possible.” Ady replies: “That doesn't make any sense. “You always talk about freedom.” Sanite explains the elusive nature of freedom in the mid-19th century for a black woman bound to a “skewed world.” Ultimately, it is Ady who embodies freedom for Sanite. “You my freedom. My life out there means nothing. My life here isn't much either. But my daughter. My happiness. That's why we're here.”

The freedom delegated to children is a desire in constant change. Its realization is achieved through action, which forges a bond that unites mothers and daughters through time and beyond death. Rebellion is an expression of freedom. But before mother and daughter can engage in a broad, sweeping rebellion, a series of tragic events unfold that ultimately return Ady to Du Marche's French Quarter home. Here, without his mother, he forms a powerful friendship with a free woman of color named Lenore. Together, they forge a bond that subverts the power wielded by Du Marche, his fellow slave owners, and the Confederate rebels.

Ady joins Lenore and others in a resistance group called Daughters, whose name is a nod to the Daughters of the American Revolution. The Daughters is an action-driven organization dedicated to liberation that has been passed down from generation to generation. This is also predicted at the beginning of the novel.

Lenore is a miraculous figure: a business owner, a single woman who commands respect from both slave owners and her father. Not only does her presence in the book raise the stakes (will her influence drive Ady to escape Du Marche's clutches again? Does his friendship with her transcend platonic affection?), but she seems too good to be. TRUE. Were there real women like Lenore or is she pure invention? What does it say that we know so little about free women of color?

Here Ruffin's legal experience helps; The details of his fiction are his proofs, proof notes. The stories are not canonical. Narratives offer a perspective on a story that contains infinite variations. Who owns them? Who should we trust? The idea of ​​possession—people as property, stories as intellectual property—becomes a slippery object in Ruffin's hands. Mothers and daughters share traumas, stories overlap and are exchanged. But the telling and retelling (what we know as slave narratives, oral histories, fictionalizations, academic interpretations) of stories defies containment. Imagination is a conduit of freedom.

This is the real story Ruffin wants to tell. Later in the novel, an admission emerges: “The women were well aware that whatever the Daughters accomplished would be forever forgotten. “Ady knew she would be forgotten too.” So what lasts? It is the continuous narrative and the ability to dream that keeps us free.

By opening up the very idea of ​​historical fiction, Ruffin dares to ask more of us from history and culture. The concept of freedom has always been debated. As we look back, we recognize our own agency. With his novel, Ruffin urges us to reclaim a legacy of determination and willful optimism that defies the odds.

Lauren LeBlanc is a writer and board member of the National Book Critics Circle.