Sometimes I read something and when I’m finished I think, “I don’t know if I really got this.” Kiese Laymon’s novel Long Division is one of those books. I know I would benefit from a reread, and from simply sitting with it longer than my appetite for reading allows. Even after a book group meeting and discussion, I still don’t think I fully grasp this novel. It’s a mind-bending book-within-a-book. We go from 2013 to 1985 to 1964 and back again. Characters show up and disappear, characters experience and witness violence, there is humor and sadness and time travel and I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to take from all of this except that I was invested and surprisingly moved in the end.
The book starts out in 2013 with our hero, Jackson, Mississippi high-schooler City (Citoyen) Coldson, getting ready to compete with a few classmates and others in the Can You Use That Word in a Sentence Contest, which was “started in 2006 after states in the Deep South, Midwest, and Southwest complained that the Scripps Spelling Bee was geographically biased.” It’s nearly impossible to set up this novel, so here’s the Goodreads description:
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.
It’s not a long book, despite all the plot elements. There’s different typeface for what’s happening in the present day and what’s happening in the book City’s reading, which helps a bit to keep everything straight. It tackles serious subjects like race, class, and sexuality, with a sideways dark humor. It felt alternately playful and serious. Parts of it, especially at the beginning, reminded me of another book that made me feel dull-witted: Paul Beatty’s The Sellout. (Not as outrageous, though.) I was not prepared for how absorbing this book is – it’s more like a speculative mystery than straight literary fiction. What happened to Baize? What is City’s grandmother hiding in her shed? Does everyone make it back to the present day? I was also not prepared for how emotional I would get reading it. I know. I cried, how shocking! 😀 But for most of the book I was kept at a distance by the book-within-a-book format and the dizzying prose, and then – BAM! The last 30 pages hit me hard.
Make no mistake, this book is using fantasy and humor and meta fiction to talk about race in the Deep South. A white man in conflict with City’s grandmother says a mouth full with one sentence.
“Y’all mad at something more than me,” he said. “I ain’t do it.”
There’s a powerful moment where City is in his grandmother’s church, and he’s wondering what the parishioners would think if they knew what his grandmother was doing. He says,
If they ever found out, maybe two of them would talk smack about my grandma, but I figured that everyone in the church had been treated like a visitor on their own road, in their own town, in their own state, in their own country. It wasn’t really complicated at all, but I’d never understood it until right then in that church. When you and everyone like you and everyone who really likes you is treated like a pitiful nigger, or like a disposable nigger, or or like some terrorizing nigger, over and over again, in your own home, in your own state, in your own country, and the folks who treat you like a nigger 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, something a million times worse than acting a fool in front of millions at a contest.
As I write this, I’ve decided that I must read this book again. And I’ve got to slow down next time.
Hmm… I have a profound dislike for books that make me feel stupid which I suspect this one would but I do like the concept!
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I understand! I think I’m going to reread this one because I don’t want it to beat me. 🙂
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Sounds like an interesting mix of elements in one story…intriguing! But I understand your feeling–the Luminaries left me feeling like half went over my head, but it was too long to reread! Let us know what you think if you do.
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I get that feeling too when I read some books. If I like other aspects of the book – the story or the writing – then I return to it later. I plan to do so with The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery.
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Wow. In contrast to Cleopatra, above, I am always drawn to books that strike others as very complex. This one sounds interesting.
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I wouldn’t say I’m drawn to them, but when I encounter them, I like the challenge they present.
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I blame the author if I finish a book still unsure of what s/he was trying to say. It might not be the auhtor’s fault, but it makes me feel better… 😉 Sounds intriguing though – enjoy your re-read!
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I like your style, Fiction Fan!
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I loved The Sellout, despite knowing that i missed at least half the jokes. Is this YA, kind of? I’m intrigued!
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You know, I don’t think it’s officially YA, but I certainly think an older teen could read it and get something out of it. There is language, of course. It’s an intriguing book!
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This sounds like a book I would read; I have a solid background in Black Lit. The way you described the book at first reminded me of one of the best-selling experimental novels, House of Leaves by Mark D. Danielewski. I had a hard time making up or down (literally; sometimes you have to flip the book upside down), real or imagined in House of Leaves, but it DID impact me.
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Yes, I would love to read your thoughts about this one if you try it. Sounds like something you’d like, I think. I’ve heard about House of Leaves but so far haven’t felt drawn to reading it.
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I’ve definitely had the same thing happen to me-not fully understanding a book when I finish it. BUT, I never re-read a book, so there’s just a bunch of books in my wake that I will never understand-Oh well!
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🙂 I certainly understand – there are just too many books out there and not enough time! But I don’t think I can forget this one, so I’m gonna try it again someday.
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I never reread books and especially if they were complex reads. I get the feeling that this is a special book though and I like the sound of the story-line so I hope that you will enjoy the reread. Great review Laila.
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Thanks, Diana! It is rare for me to reread one – I usually only reread something once or twice a year. Too many good books!
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I love your determination, Laila. I love how you said that you don’t want it to beat you. ❤ This book would test my patience too. I am curious to know how it would work on you the second time.
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Thanks, Deepika! I’ll certainly write about it when I read it again… don’t know when that’ll be exactly, ha ha…
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You have me at TIME TRAVEL. Is this on the TOB list? I think it might have been on the speculative maybe-TOB list? I’m so out of it… Anyway, you’ve convinced me that I will like this one.
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I think it might have been a few years ago. I would recommend it even if it confused me!
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Love it when this happens. Especially when the book takes your heart by surprise at the end. But just the idea of wanting to reimmerse myself in a book when I’ve just finished it…I feel like that doesn’t happen as often as I wish it would – it’s something special. I’d love to see you post about it again, after your next reading, to see what parts of it stood out/faded into the background as you walk through those pages again.
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You bet – I’ll do it! Maybe next fall I’ll try it again.
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