Time

Using an unconventional narrative structure, the author explores the interconnection between all eras in time. In Book One of the novel, City is a Black teenager living in Jackson, Mississippi. City's greatest preoccupations are with social relations at Fannie Lou Hamer Magnet School. Indeed, the first chapter of the section, "One Sentence," opens with detailed descriptions of City's rivalry with LaVander Peeler. Contentions between City and LaVander are the substance of the narrative conflict until the boys show up at the Can You Use That Word in a Sentence contest in the chapters "Chitlin City" and "Words, Word, Work." The political complexities of the contest force City to contemplate his identity, his ancestral and cultural past in new and challenging ways. At the end of "Chitlin City," City says: "We had to show everyone, including white folks, chubby jokers with tight waves, and skinny jokers with...