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  • The Residue Years by Mitchell S. Jackson book cover
  • The Residue Years by Mitchell S. Jackson book cover
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The Residue Years

by Mitchell S. Jackson

Family ties under pressure in 1990s Portland

Critically Recognized
$18.12 USD
$30.21 USD $18.12 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Award recognition

    Winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence

    Winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence

  • Critical praise

    Praised by The New York Times Book Review

    Praise describing the novel as powerful and full of impossible hope, and praising Jackson's prose cadence and en...

AlbakiReads Editorial

Family ties under pressure in 1990s Portland

Set in a neglected Black neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, during the 1990s, the novel centers on a family navigating the effects of crack cocaine and limited opportunity. Its two perspectives belong to Champ, who hopes to reclaim the family home, and his mother, Grace, newly out of drug treatment and working to stay clean and reunite with her children. Champ wants to support Grace and his younger brothers, but sees selling crack as his clearest route to the goal. The family’s struggle brings together questions of loyalty, survival, and how love can both sustain people and expose them to pain.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in family relationships shaped by addiction and economic hardship.
  • Readers seeking fiction set in Black communities in 1990s Portland.
  • Readers who value stories told through alternating perspectives.

Themes

Family bondsAddiction and recoveryEconomic hardshipLoyalty and survival

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

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.

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Customer reviews

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Malaika Taylor

I highly recommend to for anyone looking for inner clarity

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Thomas DiMassa

Great service and fast service

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Ella

Great shopping experience! The book arrived quickly, was well packaged, and matched the description perfectly. I would definitely shop with you again

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Olivia

Smooth.