{"product_id":"long-division-9781982177362","title":"Long Division","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom Kiese Laymon, author of the critically acclaimed memoir \u003ci\u003eHeavy\u003c\/i\u003e, comes a \"funny, astute, searching\" (\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e) debut novel about Black teenagers that is a satirical exploration of celebrity, authorship, violence, religion, and coming of age in post-Katrina Mississippi. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWritten in a voice that's alternately humorous, lacerating, and wise, \u003ci\u003eLong Division\u003c\/i\u003e 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBefore leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called \u003ci\u003eLong Division\u003c\/i\u003e. He learns that one of the book's main characters is also named City Coldson--but \u003ci\u003eLong Division\u003c\/i\u003e 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCity's two stories ultimately converge in the work shed behind his grandmother's house, where he discovers the key to Baize's disappearance. Brilliantly \"skewering the disingenuous masquerade of institutional racism\" (\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e), this dreamlike \"smart, funny, and sharp\" (Jesmyn Ward), novel shows the work that young Black Americans must do, while living under the shadow of a history \"that they only gropingly understand and must try to fill in for themselves\" (\u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Scribner Book Company\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/01\/2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781982177362\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304","brand":"Kiese Laymon","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39956833468597,"sku":"9781982177362","price":22.1,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_e6b0f5e2-7ac2-4948-81b8-42323b029ab9.jpg?v=1620222550","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/long-division-9781982177362","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}