![]() ![]() So we were, I guess, insulated from that. Growing up in northeast Portland, it was predominantly African-American. ![]() ![]() Jackson By ignoring (Portland’s reputation). How does your novel tie into this community? High Country News Portland has been called the whitest city in America. ![]() Survival Math, a nonfiction account of his family, is forthcoming from Scribner. in creative writing and now teaches at New York University (The novel was reviewed in HCN, 3/17/14). Jackson served 16 months in prison at 25, for dealing crack, earned an M.F.A. His award-winning autobiographical novel, The Residue Years, describes a mother and son who pursue their dreams despite the constraints of race and class: Champ sells crack to escape poverty, while his mother struggles to get clean. For Jackson, growing up black in 1990s Portland meant figuring out how to avoid letting his race and socioeconomic circumstances define his future. Jackson grew up in a version of Portland, Oregon, far from today’s Portlandia, where white hipsters quibble about culinary ethics and artisanal ice cubes. ![]()
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