Survival Math: Notes On An All-American Family

"Easily the most compelling memoir I’ve read in a decade, Mitchell S. Jackson’s Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family is a brilliant exploration of growing up black in one of the whitest cities in the country – and the strategies the author’s family and community have employed to survive. Jackson takes an unflinching look at himself and those around him, while remaining attentive to the forces that have shaped his community since its founding. While it is at times heart-wrenching and at others heartwarming, Survival Math, throughout, is marked by its abundance of beauty and grace."