Long Division

Kiese Laymon’s YA novel Long Division is a work of speculative fiction variously described as a coming-of-age story, postmodern metafiction, and magical realism; it was originally published in 2013 by Agate Publishing but was republished with significant structural revisions in 2021. The novel is set in Jackson and Melahatchie, Mississippi, in the years 1964, 1985, and 2013. Written from the first-person point of view of its protagonist, Citoyen “City” Coldson, the narrative traces City’s experiences throughout his freshman year of high school. The novel is divided into two parts. In Part 1, City is living in the year 2013. In Part 2, City is living in the year 1985. The interplay between these contrasting versions of City’s life enact the novel’s explorations of the Intersection of Race, History, and Identity, the Impact of Media on Self-Perception, and Intergenerational Trauma and Resilience. Since its publication, Long Division has won various awards, including the 2022 NAACP Image Award for fiction.

This guide is based on the 2021 Scribner trade paperback edition of the novel, in which the page numbers restart at the beginning of Part 2.

Content Warning: The source text deals with issues including racism, anti-gay bias, antisemitism, the loss of a child, and domestic abuse. The source text also includes racial slurs, which are censored throughout this guide.

Plot Summary

In 2013, Citoyen “City” Coldson is 14 years old and attending Fannie Lou Hamer Magnet School in Jackson, Mississippi. City isn’t at the top of his freshman class, but he believes that he’s better at most things than his classmate and rival LaVander Peeler. City is particularly eager to prove himself to LaVander when the boys go head-to-head at the “Can You Use That Word in a Sentence” competition. City’s mother and principal warn City that the sentence competition is more important than he thinks. LaVander and LaVander’s father also tell City that he has a responsibility to do well in the contest. City doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about, but once he’s onstage (and on national television), he realizes the racism embedded in the contest’s structure.

City’s mother sends him to Melahatchie to stay with his grandmother after he makes a vitriolic speech at the contest. In Melahatchie, City’s grandmother beats him with a switch and makes him get baptized as punishment for embarrassing the family and all Black American citizens on TV. Confused and lonely, City distracts himself by reading a book his principal let him borrow: Long Division. Oddly, the book’s characters have the same names as City and his friends and family. After the baptism, City and LaVander, who has also come to Melahatchie, decide that the book might help them solve their family problems and find Baize Shephard, a girl who went missing from Melahatchie not long ago. They venture into the woods and find the same hole in the ground that the book mentions. They climb inside and read the book aloud, presumably waiting for the hole to transport them through time.

In 1985, City is living in Chicago, Illinois. He spends time with his best friend and crush, Shalaya Crump, whenever he’s visiting his grandmother, Mama Lara, in Melahatchie. One day, City agrees to climb into a hole in the woods with Shalaya and travel into the future because he’s desperate to make Shalaya love him. Together, they travel to 2013, where City meets Baize Shephard. Baize is an orphan living with her grandmother, and she is desperate to understand what happened to her parents. City tries to help her but is afraid of losing Shalaya, who is now back in 1964 with a Jewish boy named Evan Altshuler.

City, Baize, Shalaya, and Evan soon join forces. Shalaya wants to change the future, while Evan wants to change the past. He invokes his new friends’ help in saving his family from a group he describes as similar to the Ku Klux Klan. Meanwhile, City and Shalaya have discovered that Baize is in fact their daughter. In order to help Evan, they must change the past and thus change their happy future with Baize. Saving Evan’s family means letting Baize go. City and Shalaya make this sacrifice together. Afterward, City reconvenes with Mama Lara and learns that the only way to bring Shalaya and Baize back is to write their story. He climbs back into the hole and begins his writing project, soon feeling presences next to him.