Plaits

by Shawn Stewart Ruff

In this short story of young lust and longing, a snapped rubber band leads two teen mixed-race boys from opposite corners of the city to discover they share more in common than "good" hair. From After the Riots, an in-progress collection of short fiction by Shawn Stewart Ruff, award-winning author of the novels Finlater and Toss and Whirl and Pass.

Praise for Finlater:
"[Finlater] is a winner, thanks to the spare, deeply affecting writing of Ruff, a New York City short-story writer who has penned a unique and arresting novel about two boys in love." --Beth Greenfield, Time Out New York

"[Told is the] finely tuned story of Cliffy, a 13-year-old Black boy from the housing projects who discovers his burgeoning homosexuality with Noah, a middle-class Jewish classmate from the right side of [the] tracks." --Emily Drabinski, OUT Magazine

“Finlater is unique, hard-hitting, and emotionally charged... simply put, this is brilliant writing.” - Jim Piechota, San Francisco Bay Area Reporter

Praise for Toss and Whirl and Pass:
"A brilliantly realized nightmare." --Antonio Calvo, Princeton University

"... Ruff submerges the reader into a day of a grieving man... with a wry sense of humor.... [The novel's] caliber and punch establish [Ruff] as a contender in literature." --Kay Bourne, Edge Media New York

"Weaves seamlessly between past and present [in language] beautiful and raw... [reminiscent] of Andrew Holleran." --Greg Gary, OBG

"This roller-coaster novel about a grieving man's out-of-control spiral is packed with... percussive plot and memorable characters... Ruff's dynamic prose pulls everything together with eloquence." --Richard LaBonte, Bookmarks Column

"The midpoint of the book offers a late-night sex encounter in Central Park that echoes the darkest, dirtiest riffs from New York's iconic gay writers of the 1970s and '80s.' --Jim Bartley, Xtra Canada

Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2011

About the author

Lambda Literary Award winner Shawn Stewart Ruff is the author of the novels Days Running (2025), GJS II (2016), Toss and Whirl and Pass (2010), Finlater, and the novella One/10th (2013). He is also the editor of the landmark anthology Go the Way Your Blood Beats (1996).

FYI: Cliffy Douglas, the young star of Finlater, gets a long-anticipated encore in Days Running, Ruff's most recent novel, published by DOPAMINE BOOKS in partnership with Semiotext(e) and MIT Press.