Books like Long Division by Kiese Laymon

Long Division is Kiese Laymon’s debut novel, weaving together two interlocking narratives. In 2013, 14‑year‑old Citoyen "City" Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity after a televised quiz contest mishap. He travels to his grandmother’s coastal Mississippi home where a girl named Baize Shephard has gone missing. Before leaving, City receives an author‑less book titled Long Division. The book’s story is set in 1985 and follows a youth with the same name, City Coldson, and his friend Shalaya Crump. Together, they discover a way to travel into the future and steal modern technology from an orphaned teenage rapper, Baize Shephard, only to return back to 1964. There, they aid a time‑traveler in protecting his family from the Ku Klux Klan. The two City Coldsons’ paths converge in a secluded shed behind the grandmother’s house, where the mystery of Baize’s disappearance—and the key to the novel’s overarching themes—comes to light.

First publish date: 2013