During these visits he read to Sooo Sad from the curious book, Long Division, that he had borrowed from his principal. When Grandma discovered what they had done to her grandson, she kidnapped their leader, Sooo Sad, and chained him in her shed.Ĭity soon discovered Sooo Sad, and started visiting him in secret. One day while out with his friend MyMy, City was attacked verbally and physically by a group of white men. However, every experience and encounter led to some new and terrible conflict. In the next few days, City spent time with his friends in Melahatchie. After she whipped him for his bad behavior, she expressed her love and concern for him. Instead, she called City's grandmother, and arranged for him to visit her in the small coastal town of Melahatchie.Īt Grandma's, City felt guilty for embarrassing his grandmother on television.

That night, when City's mother got home, she did not confront City about the contest. In order to prove to her that he had learned from his mistakes, he started recording his own version of what had happened. On his way home, City knew his mother would scold and punish him for making a scene on national television. Furious, after receiving his first word on stage, City launched into a tirade about racism, and the system's abuse of Black individuals like himself and LaVander. On the day of the contest, City realized that the competition was using him and LaVander, both Black teenagers, for their own twisted political advantage. City's biggest concern was beating his classmate and arch nemesis at the upcoming Can You Use That Word in a Sentence contest. In Book One, City Coldson was a teenager living in Jackson, Mississippi with his mother, and attending Fannie Lou Hamer Magnet School in 2013. The novel employs an unconventional structure which toys with the boundaries between fiction and reality, author and narrator, and past, present, and future. Kiese Laymon's novel Long Division is written from Citoyen 'City' Coldson's first person point of view, and in the past tense. The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Laymon, Kiese.

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