The Residue Years: A Novel - Mitchell Jackson

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 autobiographical novel, Mitchell writes what it was to come of age in that time and place, with a break-out 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.

Honest in its portrayal, with cadences that dazzle, The Residue Years signals the arrival of a writer set to awe.


PRAISE
“A fresh new voice in fiction.” – O Magazine "10 Titles to Pick Up Now"

“[A] powerful debut... full of impossible hope... Jackson's prose has a spoken-word cadence, the language flying off the page with percussive energy... There is warmth and wit, and a hard-won wisdom."” – Roxane Gay, The New York Times Book Review

“In this raw heartwreck of a novel, every bit of personal wisdom is hard-won. Here is Grace, mother of Champ: 'Some people are latecomers to themselves, but who we are will soon enough surround us.'It's a searing claim and prophecy about lives severely tested. The author is entirely persuasive, such that Grace and her sons, given vivid voice, are one of the fictional families I have cared about most.” – Amy Hempel, author of The Collected Stories

“Jackson's poetic prose is a joy to read …The ways mother and son grapple with social judgment and limited choices are provocative and timely.” – Booklist

“Jackson's dedication to the shadows and unhappiness of his characters shines through...” – Publishers Weekly

“It's so tough to write beautifully about ugly things but Mitchell S. Jackson makes it look easy. The Residue Years is the story of a man and woman trying their best to overcome the enormous hurdles life has put in front of them, two portraits of the courageous battle to simply do one's best. This is a memorable, powerful novel and Mitchell S. Jackson is a genuine talent.” – Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver

“I was touched by characters whose lives were often as real for me as my memories of growing up. The language invented to tell their stories engages, challenges, clarifies the American language, claiming it, enlarging it.” – John Edgar Wideman, author of Fanon, Philadelphia Fire, and Brothers and Keepers

“The language in this book is as gut-wrenching as it is stunning, at once an elegy and an anthem. The Residue Years is a story about doing what you must until you can do what you want. But most of all, it is about all the sacrifices we're willing to make for love. Grace and Champ will seize you in ways that will linger well after the last page. Fiercely honest and intense, this is a beauty of a book.” – Maaza Mengiste, author of Beneath the Lion's Gaze

“There will be temptation to put Mitchell Jackson's formidable debut novel in a convenient box but a true reading defies segregation, one of the book's many knockout victories. The Residue Years speaks in melodies about a grim world you think you know yet likely never inhabited. Inhabit Jackson's song, a ballad about family, struggle-and struggle for and with family-while finally seeing the face of systemic racism, gentrification, failed hoop dreams, and a misguided drug war that makes criminals of victims. See the face and feel the breaking heart. And also be lifted up because this fantastic achievement speaks ultimately of love.” – Robb Todd, author of Steal Me for Your Stories

“Mitchell Jackson writes brilliant sentences, so full of the energy and beauty and tragedy of life. The Residue Years is an amazing first novel that also introduces an important new voice in literary fiction.” – Michael Kimball, author of Big Ray

“I know these characters well. I know the language they speak: voices redolent of struggle and the South displaced to our country's far northwestern corner. A wrenchingly beautiful debut.” – Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones and Men We Reaped

“[A] searingly forthright and honest confrontation with the mean streets of urban decay.” – Kirkus