The Nickel Boys

While The Underground Railroad was truly a tour de force, this new book by Whitehead is more accessible and a fine novel in its own right. And it too is telling an important story. Highly recommended.

A sad and brutally honest look at the continued darkness that clouded our nation during the last century. The story was well done and the characters simple, yet elegant. They capture the essence of the horrors we inflicted on ourselves as a nation and help provide a better understanding of how we should proceed into our future. Much like Underground Railroad and especially poignant this month, this is required reading for anyone who wants to truly understand what racism looked like in out not so distant past and the systematic oppression we sanctioned for those labeled as troublemakers.

Heartbreaking.

I prefer to know as little about a book going in as possible. If it's good by reputation and of a general subject matter to interest me — or if it seems an especially important work, as this one — then I prefer to take the ride the author intends, discovering the book in the initial read. Such was the power of ‘The Nickel Boys' that I was unsure if I was reading a disguised memoir, what they unfortunately now refer to as a ‘nonfiction novel', or if it was a work of pure, if brutalized imagination. The truth was, as many truths are, somewhere in the middle. Based on the all-too-real Dozier School for Boys, this book's characters may be fictional but their stories are true. From here arises the heartbreak.

It is unfortunate that the story which unfolds is in many ways predictable. Stories of brutalized prisoners litter history as do stories of abused children, and the story of the torture of the Black Man in America is so common that it has permanently warped us as nation, an eternal specter hovering over the shoulder of anyone speaking of American exceptionalism and greatness. ‘The Nickel Boys' is very much a story of that torture, but these tortured boys were not only black, and so calling this a story of black oppression doesn't quite hit the mark. Should we ask how can we as a society imprison our young? I think the question is larger than even that: Can we really punish people into falling in line? This seems to me the greatest myth in a book filled with the misdeeds of people acting out whole hosts of destructive myths. While it is surely necessary to remove people who endanger others, the notion that we need to do so brutally in order to punish is one of the great tragedies of society. We should imprison with regret, trepidation. We should mourn all those whose freedoms are so taken away, no matter how warranted. Until we can do so, ideas of greatness and exceptionalism need to be stricken from our collective hearts.

Colson Whitehead is a very good writer, at least as far as this book demonstrates. I've not yet read another. The novel's power is found in the story's arc, and so reading ‘The Nickel Boys' in one sitting would be best. At about 250 pages, this is not unreasonable. Much of the book is a straightforward telling, without artifice and literary tricks. Whitehead understands language and can dip into poetic registers when it suits the narrative, but generally let's the power of the story tell itself. Mostly it's an important book. And heartbreaking. Did I mention heartbreaking?

Elwood Curtis works hard, plays by the rules and gets good grades. He's filled to the brim with the speeches of Martin Luther King advocating for love in the face of oppression. And yet, on his way to attending college, gets in the wrong car. The driver is essentially pulled over for driving while black and Elwood - guilty by association - is sent to Nickel Academy.

Playing by the rules and doing right gets you nowhere. Elwood is left scarred after trying to break up a fight. His black body is sold out as labour to the townsfolk - Elwood painting a gazebo Dixie White. His food is sold off to restaurants and grocery stores. And yet King's words reverberate in his head “Do to us what you will and we will still love you.”

Meanwhile Turner, Elwood's friend at Nickel, has a different view. It's about hustle and reliance on the self alone. Seeing how things are run and running around them. He knows a single misstep could mean disappearing out back. Disappearing for good.

It is those two ideas that face off in how to be in the world and how there often is no clear answer.

This is my first time reading Whitehead, which is ridiculous as I have had The Underground Railroad on my night table for months. Despite not being an epic, I think this is as close to the perfect American novel one can get. I was, in turns, filled with hope and horror and shame. I see Elwood Curtis as a hero of the people. My review cannot do this novel the justice it deserves. When I wasn't reading I was looking up information about the Dozier School for Boys, looking for Elwood in the pictures. Whitehead's storytelling chops are peerless.

I had high expectations for this book because of the author, topic and reviews. Even though I initially enjoyed the characters by the middle of the book, I wanted it to be over. I glad that I stuck with it, though, because the ending was good.

Was expecting to love this Whitehead but only liked it. I was very moved by Elwood's story in the beginning, but despite the twist (which was well done but telegraphs out pretty early on) and the stakes constantly being raised, I was less invested and the story seemed to be too. I definitely want to read more about the real Dozier school after this, and think it would be very discussable in a high school classroom paired with all sorts of other greatness, like nonfiction about the Dozier school, or articles by Nikole Hannah Jones or Between the World and Me, or the New Jim Crow, or We Are Not Yet Equal, etc.

This book was... truly amazing. It was perhaps the only BN Book Club Book aside from Island of Sea Women that I would reread. It was real and raw and heartbreaking at times. I 100% recommend anyone to read it.