SPLIT THE SKY

After foreseeing a boy’s death, a 15-year-old cellist tries to alter destiny.

Laveau “Lala” Russell is tired of racism. She lives in Davey, Texas, a sundown town with a hard line separating the Black south side residents from the white people on the north side. The two groups have maintained a veneer of tolerance—until plans for an affordable housing development heighten long-simmering racial tensions. Lala is also reminded of Davey’s bigotry at her prestigious music school, where Confederate flags line the display cases, and she’s one of just six Black students in her program. Rather than protest or join the school’s Black Alliance, Lala focuses on getting into Juilliard. But her detachment is rattled when she has a Flash, a vision of the future—an ability that runs in her family. She sees an unarmed Black boy fatally shot by a white man. Before Lala can warn the victim, her grandma has a Flash in which she sees the teenager’s murder sparking nationwide change. Suddenly facing a moral dilemma, Lala must reckon with the personal sacrifices that pave the road to collective justice. Anchored by a compelling lead, Arnold’s novel captures the exhaustion of living with everyday racism. Lala’s character arc is filled with compassion, and the first-person narrative deftly wields aspects of speculative fiction to show how history informs the present. The author approaches other themes, like interracial dating and colorism, with incisive honesty.

A profound reminder that social revolutions are never bloodless or linear victories.