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.