In a past interview with Mitchell S. Jackson in which he talks about his debut novel The Residue Years, he talks about how most of his fiction is autobiographical due to his lack of imagination (paraphrasing, of course), but thankfully, he has led an interesting life and that made that novel feel authentic without sacrificing its narrative drive, a quality his new book, the quasi-memoir Survival Math does not. While genuine half of the time (and very much not the other half) this excoriation of self handily misses the mark multiple times, feeling less like the confessional I think Jackson intended it to be and feels more like page after page of humble bragging, reveling in his various misdeeds while simultaneously condemning them from some unearned moral high ground. Like the other nonfiction book, I read this year, Bunk, it is impossible to talk about it separate from its obvious political bent. The book catalogues Jackson’s life, from his relationship to the various men in his life, from his hustling uncle to his mother’s long term boyfriend, whose compassion for Jackson hides a deep rooted tendency to subjugate the women in his life, laid out in the chapter “The Pose”, where Jackson lists his own sexual misdeeds in a way that makes us want to admire him, shame him, or pat on the back for how far he has come. It comes off as rather patronizing. The best chapter is the one on his mother, a crack addict whom Jackson views through lenses of pity, awe and deep love, but the chapter also highlights another problem, which is Jackson’s tendency to extend metaphors to comical lengths. He walks the tightrope flawlessly, but the utility of the act is questionable. Sprinkled throughout are “survivor files” second person accounts of people Jackson interviewed whose pictures make up the book’s cover. Even the worst of these have a haunting quality and brings a much needed humble face to what sometimes comes off as a rather disingenuous book.
Rating: 3/5
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