Survival Math

An acclaimed memoir from the winner of the Ernest Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence. This is the story of a young man growing up in a small black neighborhood in Oregon blighted by drugs, violence, poverty and governmental neglect.

An electrifying, dazzlingly written reckoning and an essential addition to the conversation about race and class, Survival Math takes its name from the calculations that award-winning author Mitchell S. Jackson made to survive the Portland, Oregon, of his youth.

This dynamic book explores gangs and guns, near-death experiences, sex work, masculinity, composite fathers, the concept of 'hustle' and the destructive power of addiction - all framed within the story of Jackson, his family and his community.

Mitchell S. Jackson presents a microcosm of struggle and survival in contemporary urban America - an exploration of the forces that shaped his life, his city, and the lives of so many black men like him. As Jackson charts his own path from drug dealer to published novelist, he gives us a heartbreaking, fascinating, lovingly rendered view of the injustices and victories, large and small, that defined his youth.

About the Author

Mitchell S. Jackson was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He holds a masters in writing from Portland State University and an MFA from New York University. Jackson has received a Whiting Award and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. The Residue Years was also a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize and the Hurston Wright Legacy Award. Jackson has been awarded fellowships from TED, the Lannan Foundation and the Centre for Fiction. He teaches writing at NYU and Columbia.