Residue Years

''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 WardMitchell 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.

Grace is just out of a drug treatment programme, trying to stay clean and get her kids back. Champ is trying to do right by his mum 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