Long Division

LaVander Peeler is a primary character who features mainly in Part 1. He is City’s classmate, rival, and foil. Initially, City sees LaVander as his enemy because LaVander does everything in his power to bully, shame, and embarrass City. Because City knows that LaVander is intelligent and good at creating sentences—qualities City himself takes pride in—he constantly ridicules LaVander’s appearance to assert his power over him. City thinks there’s “way too much space between [LaVander’s] eyes and his fade doesn’t really fade right” (4). LaVander similarly ridicules City, picking on him for his size, style, alleged orientation, appearance, and speech mannerisms. The boys thus develop a habit of berating each other at school.

However, their participation in the Can You Use That Word in a Sentence contest upsets this longtime dynamic while also suggesting deeper reasons for their initial animosity. Watching LaVander on television, City reflects that LaVander has always tried to prove himself an “exceptional African American […] using language to shield him from being just another Black boy” (47). LaVander thus embodies the impulse to try to play by white supremacy’s rules in order to get ahead, even if doing so means tacitly disparaging one’s own racial identity. Conversely, LaVander eventually admits that the contest organizers chose him rather than City to win because they feared City would be “difficult”—i.e., that he would refuse to express gratitude for his victory, thus deferring to and legitimating white supremacist society and the “opportunities” it provides to Black Americans.

What the contest reveals is that the individual has very little recourse in the face of systemic racism. As City comes to understand, the media has used both him and LaVander. In turn, City begins to wonder if he really does hate LaVander or if his hatred itself serves white supremacy by dividing Black Americans among themselves. He not only notices LaVander’s sensitivity when he catches his eyes watering backstage but notices LaVander’s courage when he witness LaVander’s poise during the competition. In the wake of the contest, therefore, City begins to wonder if he might love LaVander. He doesn’t “think [his] body want[s] to kiss or even grind up on LaVander Peeler,” but he also knows “that no one on earth could make [him] happier or sadder than that boy either” (45). City and LaVander therefore develop an understanding over the course of Part 1. Their family and home lives aren’t the same, but they’re both young Black boys trying to come of age in a hostile cultural and communal environment. The boys become closer friends as they learn to share their experiences, vulnerabilities, and dreams, and the novel suggests that this solidarity and empathy are key to resisting oppression. 

Shalaya Crump is a primary character who features throughout Part 2. Shalaya is City’s best friend. She lives in Melahatchie, Mississippi, with her grandmother in a trailer park not far from City’s grandmother’s house. She and City spend time together whenever City is in town on a visit. City is in love with Shalaya because she’s different than any other girl he’s ever met. City is drawn to Shalaya’s intellect, humor, and wit: He loves that he “never really [knows] what Shalaya Crump [is] going to say” and that “she always look[s] like she [knows] more than everybody around her” (4). He doesn’t always know what Shalaya’s talking about when she delivers monologues about her fears and hopes for the future, but he’s desperate to be in her presence and to win her approval and affection.

In one timeline, City and Shalaya ultimately get married and have a daughter, Baize Shephard. City and Shalaya discover this after they meet Baize in 2013, but their time traveling reveals that they can’t, in fact, have this happy family life together: They must part with one another to change the past and the future. However, City’s feelings for Shalaya don’t change even after he leaves her behind with Evan in 1964. He doesn’t know what her future will hold without him, but City is certain that Shalaya is “as compassionate and thoughtful as a girl [can] be” and that her heart and mind are stronger than those of most people he’s met (131). City’s feelings thus prove more lasting and complex than adolescent infatuation: He’s able to see and honor Shalaya in a way that others don’t. Meanwhile, Shalaya sees and loves City in her own way. She doesn’t give up what she wants or believes in to be with City, but she does stay by City’s side and encourages him throughout their adventures.

Baize Shephard is another primary character. She is referenced in both sections of the novel but features most heavily in Part 2. In Part 1, Baize is the young girl who lives near City’s grandmother in Melahatchie and who has recently disappeared. City and his Melahatchie friends and community are preoccupied with discovering what happened to Baize throughout the section but find little information on her whereabouts. When City is in Melahatchie with Grandma, he realizes that Grandma blames Sooo Sad for Baize’s disappearance, though Sooo Sad insists that he has nothing to do with Baize’s fate.

In Part 2, City meets Baize for the first time when he and Shalaya travel to 2013 together via the hole in the Night Time Woods. Baize is an orphan who lives with her grandmother in Melahatchie. Her parents disappeared during Hurricane Katrina, leaving Baize with few memories and only one photo of them. City is fascinated with Baize because she looks familiar but behaves unlike anyone he’s ever known: Baize is outspoken, spirited, and sensitive. She is gracious with City and doesn’t question his version of reality even when he tells her about his time traveling experiences. Furthermore, Baize’s personal trauma has granted her wisdom and empathy, which allows her to relate to City.

The novel ultimately reveals that Baize is City and Shalaya’s daughter: She disappears in Part 1 because City and Shalaya have to separate to change the past and future, meaning that in the new timeline, Baize is never born. Baize is therefore the proverbial sacrificial lamb whose story must end to disrupt other generational traumas. Nevertheless, she is an agent for change. She grants both City and Shalaya clarity on their lives and helps them to understand the profound relationship between the past, present, and future. Furthermore, City’s determination to write Baize back into existence suggests that she is not really gone: Baize herself is a writer—an occupation the novel symbolically associates with freedom and healing—so if nothing else, she lives on in City’s commitment to taking control of his own story.