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Long Division
Kiese Laymon’s debut novel is a Twain-esque exploration of celebrity, authorship, violence, religion, and coming of age in Post-Katrina Mississippi, written in a voice that’s alternately funny, lacerating, and wise. The book contains two interwoven stories. In the first, it’s 2013: after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, 14-year-old Citoyen "City" Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he’s sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie, where a young girl named Baize Shephard has recently disappeared.
Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book’s main characters is also named City Coldson--but Long Division is set in 1985. This 1985 City, along with his friend and love-object, Shalaya Crump, discovers a way to travel into the future, and steals a laptop and cellphone from an orphaned teenage rapper called...Baize Shephard. They ultimately take these with them all the way back to 1964, to help another time-traveler they meet protect his family from the Klan.
City’s two stories ultimately converge in the mysterious work shed behind his grandmother’s, where he discovers the key to Baize’s disappearance.
Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book’s main characters is also named City Coldson--but Long Division is set in 1985. This 1985 City, along with his friend and love-object, Shalaya Crump, discovers a way to travel into the future, and steals a laptop and cellphone from an orphaned teenage rapper called...Baize Shephard. They ultimately take these with them all the way back to 1964, to help another time-traveler they meet protect his family from the Klan.
City’s two stories ultimately converge in the mysterious work shed behind his grandmother’s, where he discovers the key to Baize’s disappearance.
276 pages, Paperback
First published June 11, 2013
About the author
Kiese Laymon
28 books3,094 followersKiese Laymon is a black southern writer, born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon attended Millsaps College and Jackson State University before graduating from Oberlin College. He earned an MFA from Indiana University and is the author of the forthcoming novel, Long Division in June 2013 and a collection of essays, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America in August 2013. Laymon is a contributing editor at gawker.com. He has written essays and stories for numerous publications including Esquire, ESPN.com, NPR, Gawker, Truthout.com, Longman’s Hip Hop Reader, Mythium and Politics and Culture. Laymon is currently an Associate Professor of English, Creative Writing and co-director of Africana Studies at Vassar College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,265 reviews
June 10, 2013
Baize Shephard, LaVander Peeler, Grandma and Shalaya Crump deserve their own books. Hope the meta-stuff isn't too distracting. Hehehehehe ...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 15, 2013
I am having a terrible time lately rating books that I think are brilliantly successful on some levels and much less successful on others. What I want to say about this book is: Read it! It's like nothing you have ever read. Think Octavia Butler's Kindred added to Ellison's Invisible Man, stewed up with a heavy dose of Haruki Murakami, but with Laymon's unique flavor. I'm still a bit dazed. Three stars isn't right - it's more like 4 stars and a "What the heck?"
June 1, 2013
I dare anybody to write a better Huck-Finn-as-time-traveling-20th-and-21st-century-hair-and-word-obsessed-overweight-black-boy-coming-of-age-civil-rights-social-commentary-satire-comedy-drama-vigilante-love-story. Just go ahead and try.
May 24, 2021
I loved these characters so much. So much plot. So much humor and joy. Also some dark twisty stuff but not in a heavy way instead in a real way that incorporates humor with fear. I didn’t fully get the logistics of the time travel but I could suspend my disbelief and it was worth it. Also the sentences are top notch!
July 27, 2014
I really wanted to love this book and I tried, but most of the time I was confused. The time travel was hard to follow and interrupted the flow of the story. I was pretty intrigued by City as a character, and it dawned on me how few books I've read with young black male characters. And for that reason, I decided not to abandon this book. I loved how Laymon captured the rhythm of young black men; it reminded me of my brother and his friends. I want more of that. I waited patiently for Laymon to explore the relationship between City and LaVander and it never really happened. There's something to be said about how young black men relate to each other, how their friendships develop, and how they deal with being marginalized. When City remarked that he loved LaVander, but couldn't really explain why, I was hoping for more discussion around that topic. It was an ambitious attempt, but too many themes and not enough character development left me disappointed. But I'm looking forward to more from Laymon. I see where he's going and I can't wait for him to hit that sweet spot.
August 21, 2019
What can I say about this book? My friends gave this to me at the right time. Being from the Mississippi Delta, this is the book I wanted to read at 16 as much as I wanted to read at 34. I laughed so much to myself, I wanted to read more. Then there is a seriousness in it too, that grips you and you know exactly how the character feels.
This book is Black manhood in Mississippi written in just under 300 pages.
This book is Black manhood in Mississippi written in just under 300 pages.
October 27, 2013
Long Division is an ambitious first novel. Laymon can't be called anything short of a visionary for, in a little under 300 pages, taking on race, sexuality, coming of age, time travel, black southern christian religious practices, love, PTSD, Hurricane Katrina, the impact of technology on rural communities and notions of celebrity.
I thoroughly enjoyed the language in Long Division and Laymon's close attention to colloquial and regional details.
Some of Long Division was heavy handed where it did not need to be. I want to say that because time travel can be confusing Laymon felt the need to over explain in some areas. I hope the next go round he leaves some of that out. There are also other passages that are just plain confusing if you don't reread them a few times. Then there are other places where, after many rereads, I found it to be plain illogical. I rather reread an ambitious, exciting novel than more of the same shit that keeps hitting the shelves. I'm not interested.
I am impressed with Laymon's debut, and at this point, I plan to buy and read everything he does. I am excited to see where his career goes, if this is the start.
May 21, 2020
“The ellipsis always knows something more came before it and something more is coming after it."
Laymon's brilliant debut novel from 2013 follows two narrative timelines in 1985 and 2013, both following a teenager named City in rural Mississippi. 2013 City discovers a book in his principal's office called Long Division that curiously has a main character also named City in 1985.
There is a time travel element to the book, and while this is innately a scifi device, the book is light in the genre. This is much more about characters and their development.
I read Laymon's essay collection, How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, last year. It was amongst my favorites of the year. I was so drawn to his writing style, I knew Long Division would be next. This novel is filled with colloquial phrases and cultural references - the dialogue and character voice was so smart and fluid. Instant love for it.
Late addition to one of my top novel selections of the year.
Laymon's brilliant debut novel from 2013 follows two narrative timelines in 1985 and 2013, both following a teenager named City in rural Mississippi. 2013 City discovers a book in his principal's office called Long Division that curiously has a main character also named City in 1985.
There is a time travel element to the book, and while this is innately a scifi device, the book is light in the genre. This is much more about characters and their development.
I read Laymon's essay collection, How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, last year. It was amongst my favorites of the year. I was so drawn to his writing style, I knew Long Division would be next. This novel is filled with colloquial phrases and cultural references - the dialogue and character voice was so smart and fluid. Instant love for it.
Late addition to one of my top novel selections of the year.
July 20, 2015
I love a book that leaves me unsure of what exactly happened and how I feel about it, except to have me kind of bowled over in its wake and sure of only the fact that I must read it again.
Because of that reaction, I'm hesitant to say much of anything about LONG DIVISION. It's smart and confusing and is appropriately about teenagers because it's got a lot of the heady strangeness of teenagedom. It's also unafraid of race and class and other things people don't like to talk about.
I think I'll need a little time to digest it before I come back to it. But I'm already looking forward to it.
Because of that reaction, I'm hesitant to say much of anything about LONG DIVISION. It's smart and confusing and is appropriately about teenagers because it's got a lot of the heady strangeness of teenagedom. It's also unafraid of race and class and other things people don't like to talk about.
I think I'll need a little time to digest it before I come back to it. But I'm already looking forward to it.
August 10, 2013
When a book is really good, I'm excited to get to the end to see what happens, but when a book is great, I'm most anticipating reading it again in the future.
In Long Division, Citoyen 'City' Coldson is a wave brush-toting, slick-talking high schooler, growing up in present day Mississippi. After getting into a bit of trouble at school, City somehow finds himself reading a book titled Long Division, in which the main character is also a teenager named 'City,' in 1984.
I absolutely loved this book, from the first page, and I don't think I've audibly laughed from a single book so many times in my life. It's told 1st person, from City's point of view, and he's hilarious in thought and voice. He's kinda wordy, which may turn some people off, but it makes his sentences seem oddly balanced, to me, as if at a certain word in the sentence, there's a pivot, and the second half drops. I doubt that I'm expressing that clearly, and it probably doesn't make much sense, but just know that it's a good thing. Another thing, I especially appreciated, is that this book doesn't get caught up in the magic of it's fantasy elements, and doesn't make that the story. It's less important why or how these things are happening, but that it's happening and how it affects the characters, that makes this book special. Long Division touches on everything from, love, to hate, from sexuality, to racism, and responsibility, but is only ever really about one of them. Give it a read, seriously.
This is one of those books that I know I'm going to read at least a few more times in my life. I picked up my copy at the library, but I know I'm going to buy it. All things considered, it's the least I can do...
In Long Division, Citoyen 'City' Coldson is a wave brush-toting, slick-talking high schooler, growing up in present day Mississippi. After getting into a bit of trouble at school, City somehow finds himself reading a book titled Long Division, in which the main character is also a teenager named 'City,' in 1984.
I absolutely loved this book, from the first page, and I don't think I've audibly laughed from a single book so many times in my life. It's told 1st person, from City's point of view, and he's hilarious in thought and voice. He's kinda wordy, which may turn some people off, but it makes his sentences seem oddly balanced, to me, as if at a certain word in the sentence, there's a pivot, and the second half drops. I doubt that I'm expressing that clearly, and it probably doesn't make much sense, but just know that it's a good thing. Another thing, I especially appreciated, is that this book doesn't get caught up in the magic of it's fantasy elements, and doesn't make that the story. It's less important why or how these things are happening, but that it's happening and how it affects the characters, that makes this book special. Long Division touches on everything from, love, to hate, from sexuality, to racism, and responsibility, but is only ever really about one of them. Give it a read, seriously.
This is one of those books that I know I'm going to read at least a few more times in my life. I picked up my copy at the library, but I know I'm going to buy it. All things considered, it's the least I can do...
October 22, 2018
6. Only those who can read, write, and love can move back or forward through time.This book did it for me. Granted, I'm a nerd for stories that look deeply at identity and stories that thoughtfully use time travel--and this book COMBINES them--but I didn't expect this story. I was thrown and have been processing it ever since. Like, a complete run-and-fetch-my-journal-so-I-can-meditate-and-respond-to-it sort of reaction. It put into words, into stories, into action so many issues and questions I've wrestled with in my own life. I'm trying to resist the impulse to say that it skewers the idea that our society can be "post" anything, let alone post-racial, because "skewers" is too violent for what I mean. The analytical work going on in this book isn't violent, just immensely, relentlessly precise. Shalaya Crump herself would like it for being so straight on, and for being kind to (while still expecting the best out of) the people within its pages.True/False
Probably best of all, this book feels like an open door. There's a dotdotdot before it, and a dotdotdot after it, and I'm sure it too is a dotdotdot of its own. All things considered, that's awesome.
9. Past, present, and future exist within you and you change them by changing the way you live your life.True/False
July 2, 2021
Conversation held with Kiese Laymon himself on 6/9/2021 via Instagram Live
The Interlocutors:
myself - @reggiereads
@ablackmanreading
@theoreads_
@kieselaymon
The event lives on my show's page @booksarepopculture. Link is below!
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CP69YsuK...
More thoughts to come!
The Interlocutors:
myself - @reggiereads
@ablackmanreading
@theoreads_
@kieselaymon
The event lives on my show's page @booksarepopculture. Link is below!
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CP69YsuK...
More thoughts to come!
December 18, 2022
A strange, interesting, experimental book. It's very meta, its contents include a book within a book. It will keep you engaged and guessing, I wish it had a more definitive conclusion though.
"It's the most real book ever man. For real, it's about tomorrow and yesterday and the magic of love." -City, Book One of Long Division
"It's the most real book ever man. For real, it's about tomorrow and yesterday and the magic of love." -City, Book One of Long Division
February 10, 2015
Reading this book was like watching the movie Inception. There are a thousand and one threads to keep track of (whose dream are we in now?), and then when I got to the end, I immediately wanted to go back to the beginning and try to collect all the stray pieces of story I missed.
(As you can imagine, I become pretty annoying when watching complicated action movies. I'm the person constantly distracting everyone with questions: Who's that guy? Where are they going? How do those two characters know each other? Wait, what city are they in now? For whatever reason, I suck at picking up on subtle detail in film. Yes, my husband does have the patience of a saint, why do you ask?)
I wish I'd had someone sitting next to me while I was reading Long Division to answer all the questions that cropped up. The premise of the book itself is fairly complex, and the complications only increase as the characters skip back and forth through time.
Yes, time travel! Here's the setup: City Coldson is fourteen years old in 2013 Jackson, Mississippi. After going on a public rant in response to blatant racism at the national “Can You Use the Word in a Sentence Bee,” City becomes an unwitting YouTube celebrity. His mother swiftly exiles him to his grandmother's house in the small town of Melahatchie, MS.
Before he leaves town, City finds a book called Long Division in the principal's office at his school. Drawn to the book partly because it doesn't seem to have an author, City asks if he can borrow it. When he opens it, he finds a story about a teenage boy named City Coldson. But this City Coldson lives in 1985. And, along with his friend and possible love interest Shalaya Crump, he can travel through time using an old hatch hidden in the woods. So the entire book is narrated by City, it's just that 1985 City and 2013 City aren't the same person. Or not exactly the same.
I enjoyed myself the most when I approached this book as science fiction. When I tried to come at it expecting realism, I ended up frustrated, but when I consciously decided to accept whatever came next, I was able to float along with the story's current and enjoy the ride. A hole in the ground that sends you back to 1964 or ahead to 2013? Sure, why not. Black kids dancing with Klan members to Outkast? That makes sense. A talking cat? Bring it on.
What's fascinating, though, is how Laymon uses these sci-fi elements to tell a very realistic story about how it feels to be City Coldson, a black teenager in the South. The passages in which City tries to make sense of the storm of emotions inside him—about the way he is treated at the competition, about his complicated relationship with a rival student, about how his choices now affect the future—are incredibly powerful.
As for the parts of the book I didn't fully grasp, I'm going to assume that's on me and not the author. I just wish I'd had someone to annoy with all my questions.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
(As you can imagine, I become pretty annoying when watching complicated action movies. I'm the person constantly distracting everyone with questions: Who's that guy? Where are they going? How do those two characters know each other? Wait, what city are they in now? For whatever reason, I suck at picking up on subtle detail in film. Yes, my husband does have the patience of a saint, why do you ask?)
I wish I'd had someone sitting next to me while I was reading Long Division to answer all the questions that cropped up. The premise of the book itself is fairly complex, and the complications only increase as the characters skip back and forth through time.
Yes, time travel! Here's the setup: City Coldson is fourteen years old in 2013 Jackson, Mississippi. After going on a public rant in response to blatant racism at the national “Can You Use the Word in a Sentence Bee,” City becomes an unwitting YouTube celebrity. His mother swiftly exiles him to his grandmother's house in the small town of Melahatchie, MS.
Before he leaves town, City finds a book called Long Division in the principal's office at his school. Drawn to the book partly because it doesn't seem to have an author, City asks if he can borrow it. When he opens it, he finds a story about a teenage boy named City Coldson. But this City Coldson lives in 1985. And, along with his friend and possible love interest Shalaya Crump, he can travel through time using an old hatch hidden in the woods. So the entire book is narrated by City, it's just that 1985 City and 2013 City aren't the same person. Or not exactly the same.
I enjoyed myself the most when I approached this book as science fiction. When I tried to come at it expecting realism, I ended up frustrated, but when I consciously decided to accept whatever came next, I was able to float along with the story's current and enjoy the ride. A hole in the ground that sends you back to 1964 or ahead to 2013? Sure, why not. Black kids dancing with Klan members to Outkast? That makes sense. A talking cat? Bring it on.
What's fascinating, though, is how Laymon uses these sci-fi elements to tell a very realistic story about how it feels to be City Coldson, a black teenager in the South. The passages in which City tries to make sense of the storm of emotions inside him—about the way he is treated at the competition, about his complicated relationship with a rival student, about how his choices now affect the future—are incredibly powerful.
As for the parts of the book I didn't fully grasp, I'm going to assume that's on me and not the author. I just wish I'd had someone to annoy with all my questions.
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
June 8, 2021
I borrowed the audiobook from my local library thinking that I would read along with my new print copy not realizing that this new printing is totally worked over. I made a game out of seeing where the book shifts and noting some of the changes. This may be why I had a little trouble keeping track of the timelines. But after watching Kiese Laymon's talk last evening with Robert Jones Jr. (which was FIRE! by the way) I learned that the 2013 version was not as he envisioned it. Now that he has bought back Long Division and restored his creation to what he wanted it to me I think it will be more powerful. The new edition is separated into two distinct books. It can be read either front to back or back to front. Laymon includes blank pages in the middle so that readers can write their own stories.
My intention is to revisit this book and allow my emotions to guide which path my reading takes. Eventually I want to read it from both sides.
For now this is my take on the book:
This book is so much more than what it appears on the surface. It's about disappearing. Baize goes missing. Tom Henry, City's grandfather has been gone for years. Both of Baize's parents are lost to Katrina. Shalaya doesn't know where either of her parents are and is searching for her future.
It's about who gets to write the word, the power of the word and how you choose to write yourself in. It's about time and the order of things. It's about where a story begins and ends and your power to change it.
My intention is to revisit this book and allow my emotions to guide which path my reading takes. Eventually I want to read it from both sides.
For now this is my take on the book:
This book is so much more than what it appears on the surface. It's about disappearing. Baize goes missing. Tom Henry, City's grandfather has been gone for years. Both of Baize's parents are lost to Katrina. Shalaya doesn't know where either of her parents are and is searching for her future.
It's about who gets to write the word, the power of the word and how you choose to write yourself in. It's about time and the order of things. It's about where a story begins and ends and your power to change it.
Read
December 22, 2016How can anyone dislike a book that’s prefaced with an Outkast quote? Laymon’s novel is not only full of satirical energy, but also fearlessly tackles the complexities of contemporary racism facing young black Americans. City, Laymon’s narrator and protagonist, is an unforgettable character with a voice that organically brings to life the adolescent challenge of contextualizing history. All the while, the structure of Long Division is cleverly experimental and engaging. This book deserves way more hype.
-Aram Mrjoian
from The Best Books We Read In November 2016: http://bookriot.com/2016/12/01/the-be...
-Aram Mrjoian
from The Best Books We Read In November 2016: http://bookriot.com/2016/12/01/the-be...
April 19, 2023
the first half was REALLY great, but the second half… you lost me with the time travel (poorly explained, not visual, made no sense) and turning jewish people into literal KKK members. i don’t know why this author felt it was appropriate to write about jewish people in such a negative way, but ok.
February 7, 2017
so look, this is kind of genius, the genius book that you really want to read again from the beginning so that you can get the million things you missed. cuz laymon covers a whole lot of black culture and history in this book, and the richness of it, starting from the extremely cool and deft language, deserves a ton of accolades alone. so consider me blown away k?
but:
1. i am not a fan of twainesque, fast-talking, smart-mouthed, boy-narrated literature. just not a fan. it doesn't rock my boat. heck, i didn't even finish The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, so you see, i'm really bad at this kind of literature.
2. the masculine stuff really puts me off. not a thing i can do about it. i realize that if you have a teenage boy narrating a book you will probably want to stick in some masturbation and quite a bit of talk about genitals, but me, it puts me off. (it's really not primary, as it probably is in Oscar Wao -- remember that i didn't finish it; didn't get past chapter one, if you want to know the truth -- so don't let this dissuade you from reading the book if you are not really, really put off by it)
3. most of all, i don't buy and don't understand all the mystical stuff. this comes near the end so i'll put it under spoiler tags.
so these are the reasons for my low rating, even though i stayed up until 4 fekkin AM to finish it!
but:
1. i am not a fan of twainesque, fast-talking, smart-mouthed, boy-narrated literature. just not a fan. it doesn't rock my boat. heck, i didn't even finish The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, so you see, i'm really bad at this kind of literature.
2. the masculine stuff really puts me off. not a thing i can do about it. i realize that if you have a teenage boy narrating a book you will probably want to stick in some masturbation and quite a bit of talk about genitals, but me, it puts me off. (it's really not primary, as it probably is in Oscar Wao -- remember that i didn't finish it; didn't get past chapter one, if you want to know the truth -- so don't let this dissuade you from reading the book if you are not really, really put off by it)
3. most of all, i don't buy and don't understand all the mystical stuff. this comes near the end so i'll put it under spoiler tags.
so these are the reasons for my low rating, even though i stayed up until 4 fekkin AM to finish it!
October 23, 2013
This book had me laughing out loud at several points in the story. I also could relate with going to Mississippi (home as my parents always call it) every summer to visit my grandparents. I really thought I would end up loving this book, but I just ended up confused and a tad bit grossed out (some 80's words for you). I know there is a deeper message in all of this confusion and sac talk somewhere, but at about the halfway point, I was having a hard time making myself continue.
This book just ended up being a little too much for me.
This book just ended up being a little too much for me.
July 1, 2021
Wow. "Long Division" is a very unique novel. Usually I'm not a fan of magical realism and time travel, but "all things considered" - I think Kiese Laymon did a decent job. I think it's best not knowing too much about the plot before reading. Now that I've finished the book and read the synopsis, I feel like it gives away the time travel element too much. The time travel is the thing that caught me off guard because I wasn't expecting it. I must admit, I was a little confused once the narrative switched in Book Two, but I thought it was a good twist. This novel deals with some heavy subject matter like racial and religious discrimination in the south. These topics are dealt in a brutally honest way which is very much appreciated. I like novels that discuss uncomfortable topics like race. The best thing about this novel was the snappy and funny dialogue among the teenagers. Very realistic. I thought the ending was a bit rushed, but overall I thought this was a well written, thought-provoking novel. Enjoy!
Thank you, Netgalley and Scribner for the digital ARC.
Thank you, Netgalley and Scribner for the digital ARC.
March 22, 2014
To fully understand the difficulty of writing about this book, it might be helpful to first skim the publisher summary:
I hadn't heard of this book before it had been included on the Tournament of Books list for 2014, and I'm so glad I read it! The writing and characters are really unique. I don't think I have been as captured by the voice of a teenage boy since reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, high praise indeed since I ended up buying that book for a bunch of people.
There is a part of this novel that I'm not convinced is as successful, and that is the time travel element. Forgive me, maybe I read more time travel than other people, but some of the elements seemed to be missing continuity or logic, and I'd need to read it and chart it out to know for sure. I do like the novel that City finds that seems to include him as a character, which added a complexity to the story that almost always almost made sense.
This book was also discussed on the Reading Envy Podcast Episode 01.
"Kiese Laymon’s debut novel is a Twain-esque exploration of celebrity, authorship, violence, religion, and coming of age in Post-Katrina Mississippi, written in a voice that’s alternately funny, lacerating, and wise. The book contains two interwoven stories. In the first, it’s 2013: after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, 14-year-old Citoyen "City" Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he’s sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie, where a young girl named Baize Shephard has recently disappeared.
Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book’s main characters is also named City Coldson--but Long Division is set in 1985. This 1985 City, along with his friend and love-object, Shalaya Crump, discovers a way to travel into the future, and steals a laptop and cellphone from an orphaned teenage rapper called...Baize Shephard. They ultimately take these with them all the way back to 1964, to help another time-traveler they meet protect his family from the Klan.
City’s two stories ultimately converge in the mysterious work shed behind his grandmother’s, where he discovers the key to Baize’s disappearance."
I hadn't heard of this book before it had been included on the Tournament of Books list for 2014, and I'm so glad I read it! The writing and characters are really unique. I don't think I have been as captured by the voice of a teenage boy since reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, high praise indeed since I ended up buying that book for a bunch of people.
There is a part of this novel that I'm not convinced is as successful, and that is the time travel element. Forgive me, maybe I read more time travel than other people, but some of the elements seemed to be missing continuity or logic, and I'd need to read it and chart it out to know for sure. I do like the novel that City finds that seems to include him as a character, which added a complexity to the story that almost always almost made sense.
This book was also discussed on the Reading Envy Podcast Episode 01.
February 8, 2022
This is story within a story with a fictional time traveling book exploring race and power. City is a wonderful protagonist who is still trying to make sense of the being black, from Mississippi and puberty. The tale begins as City competes in a competition where he must use a work correctly in a sentence. While preparing for the contest he ruminates on race, people calling him gay and the weight of the pressure on him. His humor and wit used while discussing racism, kept me interested to see what happens next.
"When you and everyone you like and everyone who really likes you is treated like a pitiful n--r, or like a disposable n--r, or like a terrorizing n--r, over and over again, in your own home, in your own state, in your own country, and the folks who treat you like a n--r are pretty much left alone, of course you start having fantasies about doing whatever you can-not just to get back at white folks, and not just to stop the pain, but to do something that I didn't understand yet,"
Toward the middle of the book the story changes and you flip it around to be read the opposite way. While City is still the protagonist, it's him from a different time. Intermingled with the narrator shift is the slow reveal about what the Long Division book may be and how the characters may be apart of it.
I was entertained by this book but it ultimately fell flat. The scope of what the book explored was far too big for the size of this book. Things were rushed and half explained, and it could have been so much more gripping and relevant if things were explained more. The writing was phenomenal. I just wished the plot and sci-fi could match it. If you enjoy character driven sci-fi, where the author challenges you to fill in the blanks, definitely give it a shot.
"When you and everyone you like and everyone who really likes you is treated like a pitiful n--r, or like a disposable n--r, or like a terrorizing n--r, over and over again, in your own home, in your own state, in your own country, and the folks who treat you like a n--r are pretty much left alone, of course you start having fantasies about doing whatever you can-not just to get back at white folks, and not just to stop the pain, but to do something that I didn't understand yet,"
Toward the middle of the book the story changes and you flip it around to be read the opposite way. While City is still the protagonist, it's him from a different time. Intermingled with the narrator shift is the slow reveal about what the Long Division book may be and how the characters may be apart of it.
I was entertained by this book but it ultimately fell flat. The scope of what the book explored was far too big for the size of this book. Things were rushed and half explained, and it could have been so much more gripping and relevant if things were explained more. The writing was phenomenal. I just wished the plot and sci-fi could match it. If you enjoy character driven sci-fi, where the author challenges you to fill in the blanks, definitely give it a shot.
August 25, 2013
I enjoyed the writing in Long Division and the humorous way in which the author turns a phrase. The writing is in the spirit of Paul Beatty and Victor Lavalle. If you are a fan of these authors, you will love this book. The protagonist is City, short for Citoyen. He is a young boy growing up in Mississippi. There is a lot of energy in the novel, and brief rifts on various subjects, mainly race and location. And not just location geographically speaking, but also time-period wise.
This is where I think the novel weakens. The book within a book thing can be a useful maneuver, but to take you through different eras in this artifice, the novel took a turn towards the simple and silly, rather than humorous and sensible. Cleverness becomes folly, intelligence becomes dumbness, and what could have been an absolute great novel becomes just average.
City is able to travel through time from 2013 to 1985 and 1964. This is all done through a door in the woods near his grandmother's home in Melahatchie, MS. He isn't actually doing the time travel, but is reading about it, in a book called "Long Division." In that book, he finds a character who narrates the publication and has the same name as him, City.
The publication is given to City, by a school official and their is no author of this book. As he begins to read the unauthored "Long Division" he recognizes names including his own, and one of his fellow peers who is currently missing. How does this all fit into what City is going through presently? Definitely some interesting moments. The novel by Mr. Laymon takes you on a sometimes exciting ride, but oftentimes an incongruous one. I would go 3.5 stars because I think the writing is mostly smart, humorous and engaging. But, since that is not an option, I must fall back to 3.
This is where I think the novel weakens. The book within a book thing can be a useful maneuver, but to take you through different eras in this artifice, the novel took a turn towards the simple and silly, rather than humorous and sensible. Cleverness becomes folly, intelligence becomes dumbness, and what could have been an absolute great novel becomes just average.
City is able to travel through time from 2013 to 1985 and 1964. This is all done through a door in the woods near his grandmother's home in Melahatchie, MS. He isn't actually doing the time travel, but is reading about it, in a book called "Long Division." In that book, he finds a character who narrates the publication and has the same name as him, City.
The publication is given to City, by a school official and their is no author of this book. As he begins to read the unauthored "Long Division" he recognizes names including his own, and one of his fellow peers who is currently missing. How does this all fit into what City is going through presently? Definitely some interesting moments. The novel by Mr. Laymon takes you on a sometimes exciting ride, but oftentimes an incongruous one. I would go 3.5 stars because I think the writing is mostly smart, humorous and engaging. But, since that is not an option, I must fall back to 3.
November 16, 2022
I'm not even sure where to start because part of the reading experience was me trying to keep the timeline threads straight. But City had such a distinct voice and the narration was so good! And it had some good conversations about respectability politics, how racism morphs to fit the time period, coming of age as a Black teen and so more much. But Kiese Laymon was still able to fuse humor and make it an overall fun experience despite the very serious topics.
December 21, 2014
For probably three-quarters of this book, I was really excited. It's so weird, and it could be hard to follow, but I couldn't wait to see how the author was going to tie everything up together to make it all make sense at the end. Unfortunately, somewhere in that last quarter I started realizing we were running out of pages and the author wasn't actually steering us toward a satisfactory conclusion. Maybe I'd get more out of a re-read, but there are some books you read once and know you need to read them again to understand everything, and Long Division felt more like a question mark - I don't know whether a re-read would help or not.
In Long Division, a black teenager from Mississippi named City has an epic, YouTube-viral meltdown during a competition called "Can You Use That Word in a Sentence" (meant to be an unbiased alternative to a spelling bee, but in practice designed to ensure a black student would win). Shortly before the competition, he borrows a book called Long Division from his school principal. The book-in-the-book is also about a black teenager from Mississippi named City, but that City lives in 1985 and can time travel. Unsurprisingly, it can be a bit confusing as chapters switch back and forth from one City to the other, but Kiese Laymon gives a strong and distinct voice to each City so that the reader doesn't flounder for too long - even while keeping both protagonists similar enough that the reader's overall sense is that they are both the same person, just living in different eras. (Apparently the print edition of this book uses different fonts to differentiate 2013 City and 1985 City, but as far as I can tell the Kindle edition did not do that, so I had to rely on context clues alone to know which City I was reading about in each section.)
There is so much that Long Division does really well - I loved the strong characters, the glimpses of the same town across very different eras, the blurred lines between the two protagonists, the time-travel element - but I felt like the book ended abruptly without really coming to any kind of satisfactory explanation for all the strange things the reader had to accept over the course of the novel. I would love to read more from Laymon, and I might even go back and re-read Long Division to see if more things fall into place on a second reading, but overall I think Long Division promises a lot more than it delivers.
In Long Division, a black teenager from Mississippi named City has an epic, YouTube-viral meltdown during a competition called "Can You Use That Word in a Sentence" (meant to be an unbiased alternative to a spelling bee, but in practice designed to ensure a black student would win). Shortly before the competition, he borrows a book called Long Division from his school principal. The book-in-the-book is also about a black teenager from Mississippi named City, but that City lives in 1985 and can time travel. Unsurprisingly, it can be a bit confusing as chapters switch back and forth from one City to the other, but Kiese Laymon gives a strong and distinct voice to each City so that the reader doesn't flounder for too long - even while keeping both protagonists similar enough that the reader's overall sense is that they are both the same person, just living in different eras. (Apparently the print edition of this book uses different fonts to differentiate 2013 City and 1985 City, but as far as I can tell the Kindle edition did not do that, so I had to rely on context clues alone to know which City I was reading about in each section.)
There is so much that Long Division does really well - I loved the strong characters, the glimpses of the same town across very different eras, the blurred lines between the two protagonists, the time-travel element - but I felt like the book ended abruptly without really coming to any kind of satisfactory explanation for all the strange things the reader had to accept over the course of the novel. I would love to read more from Laymon, and I might even go back and re-read Long Division to see if more things fall into place on a second reading, but overall I think Long Division promises a lot more than it delivers.
April 1, 2019
This book made me smile, it was an excellent debut. About City, a teen in Mississippi in 1985, but also 1964, and sometimes 2013, who, with other (also loveable) teens from his time and others, has to navigate history (including the klan) and the future (including all kinds of potential things), while also maintaining the boisterousness, posturing, inward-lookingness and awkward sexuality of the teenage years. I appreciated the humour and absurdity that this book delivered and the magic it offered, but I loved most of all that City was consistently City. That is, he was an extremely relatable, incredibly human, very vulnerable teenage boy from the beginning of the story to the end, and I’d say that I saw glimmers of Laymon in him too. His reactions were those of a kid his age, and his storytelling was also consistent with his spirit (and you quickly came to know his spirit) - this, writing a realistic youth voice, is one of the most elusive successes in contemporary literature, or literature in general (I’m prepared to name names and roll eyes here), and that was one of the great successes of this book. I wish it had been narrated by Laymon himself - we all know his own voice in Heavy made that book even heavier in the most important ways, and I believe he, like Lavalle, should be the only one to tell his stories out loud.
December 21, 2015
Very good, yet very strange book. Will need to let it marinate a little. Coming of age story of a Mississippi kid that explores culture,racism, urban vs rural, religion, nature of love, vengeance, sexuality all from the perspective of a 14 year old boy with a very vivid imagination. Captures the awkwardness and humor of a teenager at that age. Reality and fantasy become indistinguishable all capped off with a very strange ending. Not sure how I feel about the book other than it was a very interesting read right up until the last few pages when it bent sideways. In other words, wow great read...what the heck... where did that...wuh?!?
3.5 stars but upon reflection rounding up to 4
3.5 stars but upon reflection rounding up to 4
April 3, 2014
Here is another book I would not have read or possibly even heard of if not for the Tournament of Books. It is gut wrenching and powerful. The writing reminded me sometimes of James Baldwin, other times of Alice Walker. The story is a testament to the reality of racism and its continued presence in American culture, despite our half-black president, despite the unparalleled success of Oprah Winfrey.
City is an Alabama boy raised as much by his small town grandma as by his mom. He is smart, he goes to an exclusive high school, and his Black swagger is melded with the insecurities and confusions about life for a Black male in 21st century America.
Due in part to a book called Long Division, given to him by his school counselor, and in part to the ghostly presences in the woods by his grandma's house, City time travels back to 1964 and 1985. A second narrator named City lives in the 1985 sections. Also included in the rather large cast of characters are a missing classmate named Baize, an enigmatic female whose favorite punctuation mark is the ellipsis, and Shalaya Crump, unrequited crush of the 1985 City.
It is a tangled story and sometimes hard to tell which City is narrating or which time period is going on. In the end, that confusion is the book's charm as well as its theme. Time passes, cultures change, technologies progress, but the color of one's skin is still the deal breaker.
In 2013, City and his frenemy Lavender Peeler take part in a grammar competition called "Can You Use That Word in a Sentence," supposed to be free of cultural bias. Turns out it has a liberal agenda designed to prove we are no longer a racist society. After City creates a historic meltdown over the word "niggardly," the video of which goes viral, the contest goes by default to the other minority, a Mexican contestant.
Kiese Laymon, born and raised in Mississippi, is now an associate professor of English and Africana Studies at Vassar College. He has clearly taken to heart the necessity for a Black person to run twice as fast to get half as far. In fact, he has probably run four times as fast. I will read any novel he writes. As Toni Morrison ages, I've wondered who could take her place. I may have found him.
City is an Alabama boy raised as much by his small town grandma as by his mom. He is smart, he goes to an exclusive high school, and his Black swagger is melded with the insecurities and confusions about life for a Black male in 21st century America.
Due in part to a book called Long Division, given to him by his school counselor, and in part to the ghostly presences in the woods by his grandma's house, City time travels back to 1964 and 1985. A second narrator named City lives in the 1985 sections. Also included in the rather large cast of characters are a missing classmate named Baize, an enigmatic female whose favorite punctuation mark is the ellipsis, and Shalaya Crump, unrequited crush of the 1985 City.
It is a tangled story and sometimes hard to tell which City is narrating or which time period is going on. In the end, that confusion is the book's charm as well as its theme. Time passes, cultures change, technologies progress, but the color of one's skin is still the deal breaker.
In 2013, City and his frenemy Lavender Peeler take part in a grammar competition called "Can You Use That Word in a Sentence," supposed to be free of cultural bias. Turns out it has a liberal agenda designed to prove we are no longer a racist society. After City creates a historic meltdown over the word "niggardly," the video of which goes viral, the contest goes by default to the other minority, a Mexican contestant.
Kiese Laymon, born and raised in Mississippi, is now an associate professor of English and Africana Studies at Vassar College. He has clearly taken to heart the necessity for a Black person to run twice as fast to get half as far. In fact, he has probably run four times as fast. I will read any novel he writes. As Toni Morrison ages, I've wondered who could take her place. I may have found him.
July 24, 2013
I taught this book to 19 high school students in Poughkeepsie enrolled in a college prep program. They loved it, most of them even finished reading it in two weeks. We had so many wonderful conversations about race, gender, sexuality, power and responsibility...all based off of scenes from the novel and characters. If you know a high school student who feels no one is writing to them, you should buy them this book. And buy yourself a copy, too, because you're going to love it even more!
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September 15, 2022I really, really wanted to like this.
Listen, I like time travel. I like writers who aren't afraid to get at the grit and capture the truth of a teenage voice. I like magical realism. I like books that tackle heavy issues like racial politics. I even like coming of age stories.
But I didn't like this.
The cover flap of my edition includes quoting a Booklist review that calls this novel "an ambitious mix of contemporary Southern Gothic and Murakami-esque magical realism." I just finished the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and loved it, and living in the South myself, I was excited to tear into this acclaimed piece.
I actually can't even quite pin a finger on why it fell so short for me. Perhaps it was the cast of characters that didn't really click- the only one with a distinct voice seems to be City, and his character traits are delivered in a very tell-don't-show manner. He's smart and fat, yeah, I get it, not because these things necessarily inform his narrative, but because we're treated to descriptions of his stretch marks and unathletic physique every few pages. And he is smart because... he carries a novel around the entire time, I guess.
While for some the unending barrage of pheremone-steeped teenage sexual fumblings might have added to the supposed raw voice the author was going for here, I was actively put off by this theme, and I am not usually. Like I mentioned before, I loved Wind-Up Bird, and I thought the lurid sexual details worked there. Here, though, these scenes don't seem to be in service to a broader theme of instability or growing up. It's just City thinking about "getting nice with himself" a lot and talking about balls (not, I admit, one of my favorite topics of discussion).
The time travel plot was sloppy and frankly confusing. I understand the events that occurred, sure, but I don't know what they were supposed to mean. What is this plot in service of, thematically speaking? What is this book trying to say?
You might say well Lauren, it's saying something about race; you're just too white to get it. And that may be true. The race element was the one thing I liked about the book, though- the author nails the vernacular while still making it digestible and fun to follow, and City's feelings and outbursts towards others (especially those of other races, like Soo Sad and the Mexican girl at the competition) reflect the grit that I was hoping for. But honestly, this theme doesn't seem to culminate in anything. Maybe that's the fault of the intended message getting muddied by the time-travel plot (the novel's central claim to fame, and yet paradoxically its downfall and weakest point)?
I don't know. I'm disappointed as I was really hoping to like this one.
Listen, I like time travel. I like writers who aren't afraid to get at the grit and capture the truth of a teenage voice. I like magical realism. I like books that tackle heavy issues like racial politics. I even like coming of age stories.
But I didn't like this.
The cover flap of my edition includes quoting a Booklist review that calls this novel "an ambitious mix of contemporary Southern Gothic and Murakami-esque magical realism." I just finished the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and loved it, and living in the South myself, I was excited to tear into this acclaimed piece.
I actually can't even quite pin a finger on why it fell so short for me. Perhaps it was the cast of characters that didn't really click- the only one with a distinct voice seems to be City, and his character traits are delivered in a very tell-don't-show manner. He's smart and fat, yeah, I get it, not because these things necessarily inform his narrative, but because we're treated to descriptions of his stretch marks and unathletic physique every few pages. And he is smart because... he carries a novel around the entire time, I guess.
While for some the unending barrage of pheremone-steeped teenage sexual fumblings might have added to the supposed raw voice the author was going for here, I was actively put off by this theme, and I am not usually. Like I mentioned before, I loved Wind-Up Bird, and I thought the lurid sexual details worked there. Here, though, these scenes don't seem to be in service to a broader theme of instability or growing up. It's just City thinking about "getting nice with himself" a lot and talking about balls (not, I admit, one of my favorite topics of discussion).
The time travel plot was sloppy and frankly confusing. I understand the events that occurred, sure, but I don't know what they were supposed to mean. What is this plot in service of, thematically speaking? What is this book trying to say?
You might say well Lauren, it's saying something about race; you're just too white to get it. And that may be true. The race element was the one thing I liked about the book, though- the author nails the vernacular while still making it digestible and fun to follow, and City's feelings and outbursts towards others (especially those of other races, like Soo Sad and the Mexican girl at the competition) reflect the grit that I was hoping for. But honestly, this theme doesn't seem to culminate in anything. Maybe that's the fault of the intended message getting muddied by the time-travel plot (the novel's central claim to fame, and yet paradoxically its downfall and weakest point)?
I don't know. I'm disappointed as I was really hoping to like this one.
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