The Residue Years

There is nothing pretty about selling drugs or doing crack, yet Hurston Wright Award winner Jackson makes it literarily beautiful in this debut novel. The narrative alternates between the prospective of Champ, a black college student and drug dealer taking care of his family, and that of his mother, Grace, who has been recently released from a drug clinic. Opening in second person, the novel immediately grabs us, putting us in the place of the protagonists. We see characters as neither villains nor heroes but as simply people trying to do what they feel is right for the family. The beauty of this novel is Jackson's inclusion of wonderful pearls of insight within the gritty story: "There's a huge difference between lowering your standards and adjusting your expectations." Some urban fiction preaches, but Jackson simply tells a wonderful story that resonates long after the book is closed.