The Residue Years - Paperback

by Mitchell S. Jackson (Author)

Winner Whiting Writers' Award
Winner Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence
Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction
Finalist for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize
Finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award

Mitchell S. Jackson grew up black in a neglected neighborhood in America's whitest city, Portland, Oregon. In the '90s, those streets and beyond had fallen under the shadow of crack cocaine and its familiar mayhem. In his commanding debut autobiographical novel, Mitchell writes what it was to come of age in that time and place, with a breakout voice that's nothing less than extraordinary.

The Residue Years switches between the perspectives of a young man, Champ, and his mother, Grace. Grace is just out of a drug treatment program, trying to stay clean and get her kids back. Champ is trying to do right by his mom and younger brothers, and dreams of reclaiming the only home he and his family have ever shared. But selling crack is the only sure way he knows to achieve his dream. In this world of few options and little opportunity, where love is your strength and your weakness, this family fights for family and against what tears one apart.

Author Biography

Mitchell S. Jackson was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He holds a masters in writing from Portland State University and an MFA from New York University. Jackson has received a Whiting Writers' Award and The Ernest Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence. The Residue Years was also a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, The Flaherty-Dunan First Novel Prize, and the Hurston Wright Legacy Award. Jackson has been awarded fellowships from TED, the Lannan Foundation, and the Center For Fiction. He teaches writing at NYU and Columbia.