50 States of Literature: Georgia On Our Minds

Tayari Jones’ debut, Leaving Atlanta, is set during the 1979 Atlanta Child Murders, at which time a total of 29 black children were killed. Three kids tell their stories: Tasha, struggling daily to stay in favor with her friends, Rodney, branded as too soft and different to be accepted, and Octavia, whose dark skin earns her the nickname “Watusi” and makes her a pariah. The three struggle to comprehend their classmates’ disappearances while dealing with the everyday, from divorce and first crushes to unraveling what grown-ups mean by “the truth.” Jones’ narrative voices are pitch-perfect. Tasha’s crush, Jashante, buys her M&Ms and bites into his chocolate at the same time as she does—and she wishes they could have “repeated their communication as many times as there were M&Ms in their little packages for as many packages as Jashante had dimes to buy.” Using this poignant innocence, Jones conveys the depth to which atrocity shaped and shook her community. At the forefront of the civil rights movement, Atlanta was dubbed “the city too busy to hate,” and children grew up with little knowledge of the lynchings Jim Crow imprinted into most of the South’s history.

Georgia was mythically portrayed as “the red clay” that clung to “inexpensive canvas sneakers” and storms of “growling thunder and purple zigzag lightning” that left the ground cold and hard as pottery. But when fears of “the man snatching you” enter the recess lexicon, that magical world is forever changed. Rodney knows that the policeman who comes to instruct the class on safety has nothing useful to share and has made them more fearful since “this man is all that stands between you ... and early death.”

Jones’ novel is bittersweet—an evocation of childhood in her hometown and a reminder of how easily a community can be changed by hate.