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It's late summer 1979 in Atlanta, Georgia --- rain has been falling for three straight months, washing out any hopes of a sun-filled summer vacation for the city's school children, and though barely anyone notices, young black boys are going missing. Four children are found murdered before anyone even admits that there is a connection between their disappearances. Before it's all over, 29 people, mostly young adolescent boys, are dead. An arrest is eventually made, and though the murders cease, few believe that the true Atlanta Child Killer was ever captured. This is the setting of Tayari Jones's debut novel, LEAVING ATLANTA --- a compelling look at the fear and suspicion that swept through this already racially and politically charged Southern city in the late 1970s and early '80s. Instead of going the obvious route and following the killer as he preys on the children of the city, Jones instead focuses her story on the effect the kidnappings have on three inner-city fifth-graders --- Tasha, Rodney, and Octavia --- classmates at Oglethorpe Elementary School.
LaTasha Baxter is a sweet-natured and likable girl whose greatest wish is to fit in with, or at least not be picked on by, the popular clique in her class. She spends her summer vacation practicing jumping rope in her basement with little sister DeShaun just so she can improve her competence in this "proving ground for girls," only to discover that the popular girls, Monica and Forsythia, have deemed jumping rope childish as the school year begins. Thus, Tasha starts the year on the wrong foot and must find a way to get back into the inner circle. One person who doesn't find Tasha childish is Jashante Hamilton, an older boy from the projects who's "been kept back so many times that even he don't know what grade he supposed to be in." Although she's curious about Jashante, Tasha is afraid of what Monica and Forsythia might think if she reveals her interest, and instead tells Jashante, in front of the whole class, that she wishes the kidnapper would just "asphyxiate" him. Not only does this make her even more unpopular with her already nervous classmates, but when Jashante fails to show up for school a couple of days later, she begins to wonder about the power of her words.
Rodney Green is an extremely intelligent but painfully shy boy who spends the majority of his time trying to make himself as invisible as possible. He's too quiet to fit in with the kids at school and neither tough enough nor manly enough to get along with his disciplinarian father at home. Although Rodney's standardized test scores are above average, his grades are near failing, a discrepancy his father attributes to the fact that Rodney has never had to pick cotton to survive. When Rodney's father shows up at school one day to dole out punishment for some small trespass his son committed, Rodney is dragged from obscurity into the spotlight as his father takes a belt to him in front of the entire fifth grade class. Shamed beyond belief, Rodney wonders why, with everything else there is to worry about with a killer of black boys out running loose in the city, his father is instead focused on humiliating him in front of his peers. As the school day ends, Rodney sets off in the opposite direction of home, determined to prove a point, and is confronted with a dangerous opportunity as a man with an obviously fake police badge pulls up beside him and asks him to get in his car --- in a split second, Rodney must ask himself how far he's willing to go to escape his father's cruelty.
Octavia Harrison is another social misfit at Oglethorpe Elementary --- teased for being poor and called "Watusi" by her classmates because her skin is the darkest shade of black --- self-confident Octavia rises above the taunts and, unlike her "almost friend" Rodney Green, excels at her studies. Octavia lives just across the street from the projects (a distinction she is very proud of) with her hardworking single mom Yvonne. Yvonne and Octavia's father Ray were never married, and because he lives with his wife and daughter in the suburbs of South Carolina, Octavia has only seen Ray a few times in her life. But when the news of the Atlanta Child Murders begins to spread across the nation, Octavia gets an unexpected call from Ray inviting her to leave the inner-city and live with him for safety reasons. Octavia knows this is the chance of a lifetime but doesn't know if she has it in her to leave her mother behind. But when someone very dear to Octavia goes missing, she may not have a choice.
Tayari Jones, herself a fifth grader in Atlanta during the child murders, effortlessly infuses each of the three children in her novel with their own unique voice --- moving from Tasha's shy third person narrative, to Rodney's eerily chilling second person narrative, to Octavia's wise and straightforward first person account --- and through doing so creates the mood of an entire city. Although not as groundbreaking as Alice Sebold's THE LOVELY BONES, against which there are sure to be comparisons, LEAVING ATLANTA is nevertheless a touching and powerful debut in its own right.
--- Reviewed by Melissa Morgan (morgan9800@yahoo.com)
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