'This novel is written with a breathtaking, exhilarating assurance and wit. Terrific' The Times 'A wrenchingly beautiful debut by a writer to be reckoned with' Jesmyn Ward Mitchell S. Jackson grew up black in a neglected neighbourhood 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, Jackson writes what it was like 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.