Mitchell S. Jackson’s debut novel The Residue Years was praised by publications including The New York Times, The Paris Review, and The Times of London. The Residue Years also won The Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s Flaherty-Dunnan First novel prize, the PEN/ Hemingway award for first fiction, and the Hurston / Wright Legacy Award. Jackson’s honors include a Whiting Award in Fiction, fellowships from TED, the Lannan Foundation, the Bread Loaf Conference, and the Center for Fiction. His writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times Book Review, Salon, and Tin House. Jackson is a Clinical Associate Professor of Writing in the Liberal Studies Program of New York University. A well-regarded speaker, Jackson has delivered lectures and key note addresses at events and institutions including the annual TED Conference, the Yale Law School RebLaw Conference, the Sydney Writers’ Festival, Brown University, UMASS Amherst, and Columbia University. Jackson is also an advocate for criminal justice reform who has visited prisons and youth facilities in the United States and abroad.
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The Residue YearsA Novel
My ex answers your call like shit is sweet, says, Good to hear from you, so fake you want to reach through the receiver. Next thing, she drops the phone minus nary a pardon and leaves you on an indefinite hold soundtracked by the blare of some rap video cranked beyond good sense. Meanwhile, you carry the noisy cordless into another room, crack the blinds, and watch a pair of baseheads, both thin as antennas, push a half-wrecked sedan down the street. The baseheads, they’ve got the sedan’s doors flung open, and seethe at each other across a scrappy ragtop roof. Farther, they jog their hooptie to a slow cruise, jump in on the run, and sputter off. It’s still plenty of lightweight action on the set. The old lady dressed in a who-gives-a-what-about-the-heat getup (down coat, snow boots, thick wool scarf) tugging a shopping cart full of thrashed cans. Down a ways, boys riding wheelies for distance on dirt bikes with mismatched rims.
The Residue Years:A Novel -
The Residue YearsA Novel
This is how you know we’re hella-early. The screen is dead and gray and the only human in the theater besides us is a slender (true, I got nerve calling dude slim) attendant sweeping a row a few rows up. Minus dude, this scene would’ve been prime for us (the us being me and my boys), who weekends would run CIA-like subterfuge on movie workers. We’d hop a back fence, dash through a low-trafficked exit, and trade the rest of our day for the gem of free flicks.
The Residue Years:A Novel -
The Residue YearsA Novel
Maybe they’re too preoccupied to notice we don’t (or do) fit the neighborhood profile, but maybe, just maybe, they ain’t.
Scratch what I said about the pistol offering comfort. It’s an onus.
The back and forth, the back and forth, Ibullshityounot, if you snatched off the top of my head, you’d hear me pop and fizzle.
The Residue Years:A Novel
“A fresh new voice in fiction.” —O Magazine [on The Residue Years]
“[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 [on The Residue Years]
“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 [on The Residue Years]
Selected Works
- Print Books
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- Barnes & Noble
- E-Books
- Kobo
- Google Books
- Barnes & Noble
Mitchell S. Jackson is the winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing and the 2021 National Magazine Award in Feature Writing. Jackson’s debut novel, The Residue Years, won The Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence. His essay collection Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family was named a best book of 2019 by fifteen publications. Jackson’s other honors include fellowships, grants, and awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Creative Capital, the Cullman Center of the NYPL, the Lannan Foundation, PEN, and TED. His writing has been featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, Time, and Esquire, as well as in The New Yorker, Harpers, The Paris Review, The Guardian, and elsewhere. Jackson is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Esquire. He holds the John O. Whiteman Dean’s Distinguished Professorship in the English Department of Arizona State University.