Mitchell S. Jackson's "The Residue Years"

I just finished Mitchell S. Jackson's The Residue Years (2013) which won the 2014 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. As usual, there is a lot that I could say about this work; however, I just want to focus on one specific scene, and while focusing on that scene, I hope that you get an understanding of Jackson's novel and pick it up for yourself. I would love to hear what you think of it in the comments below.

The Residue Years centers around the Thomas family, specifically the matriarch Grace and her eldest son Shawn (Champ). Grace and Champ narrate each chapter, and they alternate throughout the novel. At its core, The Residue Years explores issues regarding family, race, the American Dream, and poverty. Grace, who used to work a corporate job, has just gotten out of prison at the beginning of the novel and must continually check in with her court appointed social worker to finish her rehab program. Starting off strong, the daily grind that she has to endure to get a job, make it to that job, and just plain survive finally gets to her and she relapses back into her old habits, eventually landing up back in jail and rehab. Champ, on the other hand, is in college, and his professor tries to talk him into going to graduate school. All the while, he sells drugs and works--hard--to try and buy his family's house on Sixth Street (one of the houses he lived in with his mom and brothers when he was younger). Throughout, this is his goal, but a white, middle-class man named Jude cons him out of the money he wants to use for house, and Champ, like his mother, ends up in jail at the end of the novel.

The above does not tell the whole story. While reading, I couldn't help but think about Donald Goines's Dopefiend (1971) or Vern E. Smith's The Jones Men (1974) and their focus on the ravages of drugs and poverty on individuals, but that is a discussion for another day. One of the main conflicts in the novel involves Grace's desire to stop her ex, Ken, from gaining full custody of her two youngest sons KJ and Canaan. The novel concludes with Grace going on a bender only two days before the court date where she must appear to prove that she can raise the boys and see them. Earlier, Grace has Champ get the boys and bring them to her so they can enjoy a day at Multnomah Falls. There is nothing insidious about Grace's plan; she just wants her sons to know that she cares and to create an experience that they can share in support of her when everyone gathers in court.

Multnomah Falls

What struck me about this scene is not the fact that it takes place outside of Portland, OR, in a natural setting; instead, I was drawn to the trek the four visitors endured at the falls. About half way up the trail, Champ turns to his mother and asks her if everything is "cool." Looking at the falls, Grace gathers her boys to her and says, "There's nothing for you to be afraid of. All you have to do is tell the truth. . . Today's truth. . . . Remember this. . . . You, me, us--we can't ever get trapped by who we were. Who we were is not who we are. Who we are is right here (285). Even with all of her past flaws--leaving her kids home at night while she goes out to get high, missing important life events, and overall neglecting her kids at certain points--she wants that to be in the past. She strives to change her life and to straighten out; however, she gets sucked back in. That's why the last thing she says at the falls sticks with me. Champ suggests that they turn around, after already reaching the half way point, and head back down because everyone appears to be getting tired. Grace refuses, saying, "This is a good hurt. An earned hurt. We can't come this far and stop short" (285).

In many ways, Grace's assertion reminds me of one of my favorite Langston Hughes poems "Mother to Son," a poem where a mother tells her son that life is not a crystal stair. The smooth, easy path does not exist; rather, "It's had tacks in it, And splinters,/ And boards torn up,/ And places with no carpet on the floor--Bare." All the while, though, the mother tells her to keep going, around dark corners over cracks, even though he feels like he wants to turn around and go back down. Even though it's hard, the mother says, "I'se still climbin'." Like Grace, she continues, no matter the obstacle. Like Grace, she wants a life for her a son, a life that appears better than the one she had. Like Grace, she loves her son and gives his advice on how to navigate a world that keeps him down because of the color of his skin. While trying to maintain her upward assent, Grace falls though, a warning that the mother in Hughes' poem warns her son about. The mother tells her son that even though its dark he must not turn back; he must not start the descent because life gets hard; he must keep climbing.

Jackson's novel traces Grace's attempts to rehabilitate her life and to not fall back into her old ways, but the environment grabs her and refuses to let her escape. The environment ensnares Champ as well, leading him into a life as a drug dealer even though he had (and lost) a D-1 basketball scholarship and decides to apply for graduate school. More could be said, as I point out earlier, but for now, I would like to leave you with one more observation. Thinking about Grace, I also couldn't help but think about characters like Aunt Charlotte and Tante Lou in Gaines's works. Both of these women sacrificed for Jackson and Grant respectively. While the situations of Grace and Gaines's characters differ, they are similar in certain ways. What do you think? If you've read Jackson's The Residue Years, what themes stuck out to you?

Jackson, Mitchell S. The Residue Years. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. Print.

   

The Importance of Art

Last week, Irvin Mayfield appeared at UL Lafayette as an artist in residence for three days. During that time, he spoke with students in various classes including literature and music classes, he performed with the UL Jazz Combo I and his quintet, and he strengthened my beliefs in the power of the arts and the humanities in society. This post could devolve into a lifelong look at how the arts have affected me throughout my life, but I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm going to just make a few observations regarding my thoughts about the arts and humanities. He speaks about these ideas in his interview with Judith Meriwether on KRVS. 


To begin with, I've always felt that music resides at the pinnacle or artistic expression in regards to its ability to communicate emotion and feeling to not just an audience but to the performer as well. Without knowing the words, if there are any, a composition can move you in certain ways whether that's making you fell joy, sadness, anger, or any other emotion. At the concert last Tuesday and at the world premier of James Syler's Congo Square on Friday night, this belief struck home with me again. The Irvin Mayfield Quintet performed a piece from Dirt, Dust, and Trees entitled "Angola." The piece explores themes of struggle and persecution that appear in Gaines's works. Speaking about the song, Mayfield said that he asked Gaines why all of the heroes in his novels die, and Gaines replied by simply telling him that they must because they cannot live in a world that treats them the way that it does. "Anogola," which takes its name from the infamous Louisiana State Prison, reluctantly moves the listener through the pain and struggles of numerous individuals, mostly African American males, who are incarcerated in this country for no other reason than their class status or color.

I had heard this song once before at the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence ceremony; however, last week the piece carried a heavier weight for me, not because of anything different since the first time I heard it performed a month earlier, but because of the sounds that evening. It opens with just the drum for a few measures then the piano and bass enter creating an ominous, almost desperate feel. Sitting in Angelle Hall, the Jamison Ross started the song, and all I could notice was that when he hit the bass drum, the snare drum, and the hi hat the sound left the stage, traveled to the back of the auditorium, then returned, albeit a little quieter. At that moment, my mind shifted to Marcus standing before Bonbon's horse in the fields, to Jefferson, feeling like a hog, in the jail cell in Bayonne, to Charles Blow's son being accosted by police at Yale, to mothers and fathers having to tell their sons to keep their hands on the wheel when being pulled over just because of the color of their skin, to rappers being pulled over by police-again because of their skin. The list could go on, and on, and on, and on. Once Max Moran's walking bass line and Joe Ashlar's piano introduced themselves, I began to drift, and get lost, not even recalling much of the song until Irvin and trombonist Michael Watson blared on their horns and brought me out of my thoughts back to that jail cell in Bayonne, a fictional jail cell, where Jefferson anguishes about what has happened and what will eventually happen to him. Jefferson screams in that cell, wanting to be recognized as a man, a person, a human being with thoughts and ideas. He gets that recognition, from Grant, from Paul, and from others, but not until he sits in Gruesome Gertie and perishes. That is what the sounds coming from the stage that night did for me. That is what they said to me at that moment. 

On Monday, Mayfield spoke with an English class about art and its importance. Constructing the class around a conversation, he asked the students to help him define words such as "idea" and "event." As the class progressed, other words appeared and entered the conversation. At one point, the discussion moved towards what constitutes creativity and art; here, the question of whether or not the building the students were sitting in should be considered a form of creative expression. Some students looked puzzled, and others agreed that it should. As the conversation moved towards the planning of cities and neighborhoods, then to the French Quarter and its history, I thought about what architecture says about the society, and specifically I thought about the Louisiana State Capital. I've written about the capital on this blog before, but what I did not mention is the fact that the capital contains numerous carvings relating to Louisiana history. One aspect of that history that does not appear is slavery. There are images of settlers interactions with Native Americans and of what appear to be slaves, but could be share croppers, in the fields. However, there are no images of slave auctions, scourging, of other aspects. History contains the good and the bad, and shouldn't both be exposed lest we forget where we came from? 

Continuing my thoughts about the capital, I had an opportunity to speak with Mayfield at a reception and he started discussing how corporations and the government use art to control. That's why we don't have those images in the state capital. Think about at MLB, NBA, and NFL games. What does art have to do with these events? At each one, every night, someone performs "The Star Spangled Banner." Why? The singing of our national anthem began in earnest in sports in the seventh inning of the first game of the 1918 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs. Why is this important? It's important because America, 17 months earlier, entered World War I. The anthem became a patriotic rallying cry, as we saw after September 11. Once the owners realized that people responded to the song, they began to have it performed again and again. I'm not saying that the anthem is a bad thing; I am only saying that we need to think about how art and artistic expression relate to events that we may not even consider them being a part of and what that incorporation means. The NFL started to get bigger after a couple of specials on NBC that had artistic merit and led to the creation of NFL films. It brought the game closer to the fans by making it personal and artistic.     

With all of that said, I want to leave you with a couple of parting thoughts and questions. What teachers do you remember from your educational career? For me, it's the English teachers. Granted I'm in English, but those are the teachers I remember the most. It can't be a coincidence that others, who do other things, remember them as well. Liberal arts matter. College should, as Frank Bruni says in "College's Priceless Value: Higher Education, liberal Arts and Shakespeare," work to make us better citizens. Literature, and all art, opens our eyes to those around us, that we may see, but more often than not, that we don't see. It relates the human condition to us, and as I have had students tell me, in Bruni's words, "It informed all my reading from then on.

Part of studying literature, art, history, music, etc, is to learn how to see through the noise and make up your own mind about issues and ideas instead of listening to the same old rhetorical bombast and idiocy that spews from the mouths of those that want to either hold on to their power or to grab a piece for themselves. It forces you, sometimes reluctantly, to take the red pill, opening you up to realities that either eluded you or you ignored. Your stomach will wrench, your eyes will cry, your mouth will laugh, and your ears will hear. Most importantly, your heart will expand by studying the liberal arts. 

As I am fond of quoting James Baldwin on this topic, "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive."