It is rare that I will purchase a second copy of a book that I already own and have read more than once, but I am making an exception with the recently revised and re-issued edition of Kiese Laymon’s Long Division ... Reading the opening pages of Long Division not long after its release in 2013 was like getting a lightning bolt to the brain. The energy in the language and propulsive storytelling was off-the-charts ... Laymon is a singular voice in American literature.
Long Division could have been a Nebula nominee.Long Division could have been a Young Adult classic. Long Division could have been a statement on American race relations. Long Division attempts to be all of these things. And while there are shortcomings — 270 pages might not be enough room to give every plot point and character arc the space they deserve — they are easily overshadowed by the book’s ambition. The book could have been 27,000 pages instead of 270, and readers would not tire of the world Laymon creates for his characters ... In a lesser novel, the idea of time travel could have easily pushed Long Division out of the literary realm and into the realm of genre writing. But the fantastic elements are still character-driven elements ... Ultimately, it is not the characters, the language, or the popular culture references that make Long Division an African-American text; it is the ghosts that inhabit the book ... Laymon gives us a story that embodies the ellipsis, the idea of an understood but unspoken beginning and ending. Narratives very rarely end; they go through edits and revisions. Characters are added and erased. For a book that begins with a grammar and language competition, Long Division fittingly ends with a statement about language, and that statement is that language, like history, never stops moving forward.
Playing with time in an act of historical interrogation, the novel rejects static racial inequity and straightforward progress alike, expressing all along a deep dissatisfaction with the supposed triumph of multiculturalism today ... More than anything, Laymon shows with surprising lucidity how American racialized inequality is persistent but mutable, that the past is not the present, but isn’t, either, entirely past ... If this sounds confusing, that’s because it is. Long Division’s reflexiveform expresses the messy complexity of American history ... demonstrates how white supremacy in the age of establishment multiculturalism allows people of color to play, even to 'win,' but always on its own carefully controlled terms ... The novel works imaginatively with the past to balance painfully sober material with humor and farce ... While Long Division is not defeatist, it’s not entirely hopeful either. Total optimism or pessimism would give only a partial view of history’s dialectical discontinuities. Instead, embracing the unpredictability and contingency of historical change, Long Division generously asks that we sit in the messiness a while.
The story grows more and more disorientating as fiction and reality intertwine. But any confusion over time and place, and who wrote the book within the book, is alleviated by the fact that each character is their own universe ... Laymon writes with humour and clarity about what it means to come of age, to be black in the south, to survive a natural disaster, to become an online celebrity, to love for ever. The time travel device isn’t there to drive the plot, but to play with conceptuality, resulting in a triumphant piece of metafiction.
... 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.
... rich in satire and sharp observations ... Full of some of the most stunning descriptions I have ever read and plenty of head-scratching moments of surrealism, Long Division is a bewildering gem of a novel. As in HEAVY, Laymon’s control of the written word is unparalleled, his descriptions vivid and raw ... You’ll have to suspend your disbelief a bit --- okay, a lot --- for some of the time-travel science, but if you can latch onto City’s voice and Baize’s wisdom, you’re sure to learn something from this profound, darkly funny book.
... hilarious, moving and occasionally dizzying ... 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.
... meandering ... 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.
