by Kiese Laymon
Thank you, Linda, for wide eyes and honesty. Thanks again to my grandma, Catherine Coleman, for grace and red eyes. Thanks, Nicole, for all that gumption. Thank you, Uncle Jimmy, for haunting me in the most beautiful ways possible. Thank you, Mama, for being proud and brilliant. You were my first teacher. I’d like to thank my father for stepping back into my life with more passion and generosity than I ever imagined. As you always say, we’re in a better space.
Thank you, Professor Eve Dunbar, for superb guidance and care in the midst of professional mess, and always reminding me not to sell my work short.
Thanks to Carlos Alamo, Luis Inoa, Hiram Perez, and the entire Black and Latino Engagement Crew.
Thank you, Emma Carmichael, for that genius, space, and trust. Thanks to AJ Daulerio, Tom Scocca, Jim Cooke, and John Cook for the weekend.
Thanks to Amanda for being the best research and editorial assistant on earth.
Thanks to the art and activism of James Baldwin, Cassandra Wilson, Charlie Braxton, Josie Pickens, Margaret Walker Alexander, David Foster Wallace, Imani Perry, dream hampton, Rosa Cabrera, Sophia Chang, Heesok Chang, Matt Parker, Adisa Ajamu, Hua Hsu, Amitava Kumar, Noel Didla, and her entire Jackson crew.
Thanks to Doug, Eileen, Jali, Zach, and Agate Bolden for all that masterful work and trust.
Thanks to the inventor of the internet. You did good.
Thanks to my Facebook family and my students for being way smarter than me. I hope I didn’t waste your time.
About the Author
Kiese Laymon was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. He graduated from Oberlin College and earned his MFA from Indiana University. Laymon is a contributing editor at Gawker.com and has written for numerous publications, including Esquire and ESPN.com. He is an associate professor of English and Africana Studies at Vassar College. His first novel, Long Division, was published by Agate Bolden in June 2013.
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“Funny, astute and searching.... The author’s satirical instincts are excellent. He is also intimately attuned to the confusion of young black Americans who live under the shadow of a history that they only gropingly understand and must try to fill in for themselves.”
—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
“A novel within a novel—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.”
—Kirkus Reviews