SILHOUETTING THE AFTERMATH OF ATLANTA CHILD MURDERS IN TAYARI JONES’ 'LEAVING ATLANTA' (Pages 17- 21) by Arunmozhi. K in THE INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH SPECIALIST / ISSN: 2350-1499 (Online); 2350-0751 (Print)

Surprisingly his paper aims at exploring the catastrophe of the Atlanta Child Murders through the eyes of Tayari Jones in her novel Leaving Atlanta (2002). Tayari Jones is a contemporary black women writer and in this novel Leaving Atlanta (2002), she writes about the three Atlanta fifth graders living in the midst of the crisis. The novel is based on the factual event of Atlanta child murders that happened between the year 1979 and 1980. This factual event is noteworthy in the history and also in the life of African Americans. The novel Leaving Atlanta (2002,) represents the tragic condition of the children of Atlanta who were kidnapped and murdered cruelly. Further, the novel tells the story of classmates Tasha Baxter, Rodney Green and Octavia Harrison during their fifth-grade year at Oglethorpe Elementary in Atlanta. Tasha is an adorable, ambivalent middle-class girl treading the harsh social waters of her school. Rodney, an atypical boy in class is a marginalized kid who feels both pushed and ignored by his perfectionist parents. Octavia is a whip-smart, confident social outcast who carefully notes that she lives across the street from the projects. Jones, who was child herself in Atlanta in the late 1970s and early 1980s, weaves her tale with consummate ease, shifting from third to second to first person as she switches narrators. Furthermore, details of the children’s everyday life are presented sentimentally and nervously based on the murders that occur. Thus, this paper will represent the problems faced by Atlanta children through Tayari Jones’ Leaving Atlanta (2002) Keywords: Atlanta child murder, racial issues, African Americans