[9] In 2013, Leonard Pitts's Freeman won the Black Caucus of the American Library Association award for best fiction.

Jesmyn Ward, who published her debut novel Where the Line Bleeds with Agate, went on to win the National Book Award in 2012.

In his writeup, Eric Thurm calls it "the rare successful book that makes you want to put it down: In this case, to catch a plane/train/walk to Hot Doug's.

"[24] Novelist, professor, and social commentator Roxane Gay, in a piece for The Nation, called Long Division "[an] ambitious novel, and though it is raw and flawed, it is the most exciting book I've read all year.

"[25] In 2014, the novel was chosen for The Morning News Tournament of Books, but was eliminated in the first round by The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt in a verdict rendered by Hector Tobar.