Book Beginnings quote:
LaVander Peeler cares too much what white folks think about him
Friday56 quote:
Hurricane Katrina tore up Grandma's old shotgun house eight years earlier, but within a year, she's gotten a new shotgun house built on the same spot.
Summary:
Written in a voice that’s alternately humorous, lacerating, and wise, Long Division features two interwoven stories. In the first, it’s 2013: after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-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-version of City, along with his friend and love interest, 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 items with them all the way back to 1964, to help another time-traveler they meet to protect his family from the Ku Klux Klan.
Review: I'll tell you what. That summary makes Long Division by Laymon seem like a normal time-traveling story. Well, I'm here to tell you it is not 'normal.' It is quite possibly one of the most confusing books I've ever read, and I've read If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Calvino, so that should tell you how weird and confusing this book is.
First, the book is set in Mississippi, starting in 2013. City is a young high school student who speaks in a sort of Black vernacular that to my Pacific NW ears doesn't make sense. He is selected to participate in this all-state contest similar to a spelling bee but a sentence bee instead. LaVander Peeler is also another participant in the the contest. But unlike City, LaVander speaks very clearly, using "proper" English. This really bugs City. So even before the contest City and LaVander get into a tiff at school and City has to meet with the principal. It is during this confrontation that City is given the book Long Division, where he learns there is another Citoyen Coldson living in Mississippi, in the same town where his grandma lives, only in the year 1985.
After the ruckus caused by City at the sentence contest, his mother sends him to live with his grandma for a while in Melahatchie, Mississippi, a town decimated by Hurricane Katrina a few years before. While there City is confronted over and over again by the racism in our society and City keeps questioning why Blacks have to put up with so much. At this point there is a confusing few chapters that I didn't really understand. End of part one.
Part two. Turn the book over and begin reading. This time the year is 1985 and City is visiting his grandma in Melahatchie but he lives in Chicago, not Jackson. He and a girl across the street agree to figure out this time-travel portal and end up in 2013 where they meet rapper Baize Shephard. City steals her laptop and phone and travel back but this time to 1964, after meeting a fellow time traveler who wants their help in saving him from the KKK. It gets completely and 100% confusing at this point, then the end of the book happens with City back in 2013 writing about his experiences in a book titled Long Division.
I bet you are wondering why I continued reading such a confusing book, aren't you? Well, it was a book club selection and I try my hardest to always finish those books, even if I don't like them. Our club meeting where we discussed the book was oddly hilarious. No one knew what was happening and couldn't figure out the timeline and how everything tied together. Since the book was part of a library kit (15 books + discussion questions + background information on the author) we assume there is some sort of vetting done by the library beforehand.. That may not be the case with Long Division. My biggest guess is that the library selected it because it is an anti-racism novel. If we weren't all trying so hard to figure out the plot, I think all of agreed that the book made some pretty valid points about:
- Racism in schools and other organizations that try to prove they aren't racist by holding contests, and other events, where Blacks are promoted so that the whites can say, "See, we aren't racist or else a person of color wouldn't have won."
- Even in Black churches there is a form of racism and hypocrisy. For example City doesn't want to pray to the white Jesus picture hanging in the sanctuary.
- Racism has changed a little since 1964, but not much.
- Blacks are expected to "take it" without retaliation. We whites can be awful to you, but you can't be awful to us back.
Even though the book is confusing, I did enjoy the clever 'book one', turn the book over, 'book two' aspect. I know the book had very valid points to make and though our discussion showed off our collected confusion, we did have a fairly good discussion about racism/antiracism. And that made the read worthwhile.
-Anne
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