Review by Booklist Review
Defying a patronizingly racist spelling bee on live television, 14-year-old Citoyen City Coldson's rant goes viral and becomes an embarrassment on a national scale. Sent to stay with family in the small town of Melahatchie, he distracts himself from Internet infamy, redneck racists, and a grandmother who's not afraid to make him cut her a switch by reading a mysterious book. Titled Long Division, it also follows a 14-year-old named Citoyen Coldson but in 1985. When a missing girl from the neighborhood turns up as a character, real life and fiction begin to blur across time. Laymon's debut novel is an ambitious mix of contemporary southern gothic with Murakamiesque magical realism. Though forced at moments, the story is rich and labyrinthine, populated with complex characters. Told from the parallel points of view of the two boys named City, the book elegantly showcases Laymon's command of voice and storytelling skill in a tale that is at once dreamlike and concrete, personal and political.--Baldino, Greg Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Two not-quite-parallel threads run through Laymon's meandering debut novel: the first, the story of young Mississippi high-schooler Citoyen, a.k.a. "City"; the second, chapters from a book he finds about a young Mississippi high-schooler of the same name, who, it seems, is him in a different time period. City is something of a typical inner-city teenage protagonist-sharp-witted and sharp-tongued, yet sensitive and observant-so his uncharacteristic outburst and the ensuing repercussions that give the novel its initial momentum seem implausible. The novel takes a fantastical turn, and occasionally Laymon's workings stand out a little too clearly. This selective adherence to the "rules" of writing happens on a larger scale: the novel within a novel goes unexplained-and unquestioned by City-for so long it's as though the author is ignoring his own subject matter to keep pages turning. Those trusting Laymon to provide answers will find a curious, enjoyable novel. However, readers who believe authors must address a text's pressing concerns as they make demands upon the reader-not when the author decides he wants to-will find this novel more trying. Though its real-world sections take relish in skewering the disingenuous masquerade of institutional racism, the book's interest in fantasy elements serves as an easier, less interesting, way out. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A novel within a novel--hilarious, moving and occasionally dizzying. Citoyen "City" Coldson is a 14-year-old wunderkind when it comes to crafting sentences. In fact, his only rival is his classmate LaVander Peeler. Although the two don't get along, they've qualified to appear on the national finals of the contest "Can You Use That Word in a Sentence," and each is determined to win. Unfortunately, on the nationally televised show, City is given the word "niggardly" and, to say the least, does not provide a "correct, appropriate or dynamic usage" of the word as the rules require. LaVander similarly blows his chance with the word "chitterlings," so both are humiliated, City the more so since his appearance is available to all on YouTube. This leads to a confrontation with his grandmother, alas for City, "the greatest whupper in the history of Mississippi whuppings." Meanwhile, the principal at City's school has given him a book entitled Long Division. When City begins to read this, he discovers that the main character is named City Coldson, and he's in love with a Shalaya Crump...but this is in 1985, and the contest finals occurred in 2013. (Laymon is nothing if not contemporary.) A girl named Baize Shephard also appears in the novel City is reading, though in 2013, she has mysteriously disappeared a few weeks before City's humiliation. Laymon cleverly interweaves his narrative threads and connects characters in surprising and seemingly impossible ways. Laymon moves us dazzlingly (and sometimes bewilderingly) from 1964 to 1985 to 2013 and incorporates themes of prejudice, confusion and love rooted in an emphatically post-Katrina world.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
