The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You: Stories

Ruffin effectively shows the reader the unseen and their ghosts. By seeing these characters, we can capture a glimpse of them, of their lives. We can empathize and understand their world a little better, and our world, too. In so many of Ruffin’s stories, we see the unseen, and what they are trying to do, but their generations, our generations, must talk to each other, must communicate. There is no better way to understand each other’s actions than hearing what is said from the ghosts in our lives, and in his collection, Ruffin tries to give the unseen as much of a spotlight as he can, and he tries to give their ghosts as much of a voice as he can. But hearing them, and seeing them, is up to us, as readers, as peoples.