Book Review: "The Nickel Boys" by Colson Whitehead
Oh, goody, more in-real-time texts of my reactions while reading. Spoiler: I did go down that rabbit hole, and it was indeed terrible.
“The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead
Synopsis: As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is “as good as anyone.” Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides “physical, intellectual and moral training” so the delinquent boys in their charge can become “honorable and honest men.”
In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear “out back.” Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King’s ringing assertion “Throw us in jail and we will still love you.” His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble.
The tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys’ fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.
Based on the real story of a reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers. - Penguin Random House
Rating: 5
Review: Like everyone, I read and loved “Underground Railroad” a few years ago (I think before it won the Pulitzer #beforeitwascool - can I claim that?), and I think I pre-ordered this book in January — so my expectations were high. Needless to say, they were met, and more. While I am a booklover, I am not precious with my books - I underline passages, I dog-ear pages with significant things I want to remember, I throw them in my workbag with little regard for the cover - and with this one, I dog-eared 11 pages to remember. I went back through them as I was writing this review, trying to decide which (if any) to share, and this one kept coming back to mind:
“ There are small forces that want to keep you down, like other people, and in the face of all those things, you have to stand up straight and maintain your sense of who you are.”
“The Nickel Boys” is the story of Elwood Curtis, a fine and upstanding young black boy, growing up in Tallahassee, Florida during the height of the Jim Crow era. I am embarrassed to admit that I don’t know much about this time in American history — it wasn’t covered in my history classes (which largely stopped at World War II), and even though I was a history major, I focused on Britain and not the United States. In law school, I learned about the constitutional underpinnings of this dark time in US history, but we didn’t delve into the details of what Jim Crow actually was. For me, this was incredibly eye-opening and heartbreaking and nauseating, but it also made me believe — Elwood never loses his faith or his sense of self, and that’s a lesson we can all learn.
The book is divided into three parts: Elwood’s life in Tallahassee before he was sent to Nickel; Elwood’s experience at Nickel; and Elwood’s recollections looking back on Nickel in more modern times - the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 2000s, interspersed with some of his last days at reform school. I loved the way this was set up because we, as readers, were able to get a picture of Elwood’s life and his dreams and goals — equality, college, bettering himself — before it was all blown to hell with going to Nickel.
Knowing that this was based on an actual reform school in Florida, and that schools like this operated around the country (and maybe still operate? I’m afraid to google that), made me feel physically ill. The tails of The White House, Lover’s Lane, “out back” — in addition to the physical and emotional labor these children were forced to do — are horrifying. Whitehead pulls no punches with his descriptions of these activities, and it is sometimes hard to get through.
Throughout everything that happens in the book, Elwood remains Elwood — optimistic, believing in the good of humanity, and striving for everyone around him to be better — and so the things that happen to him feel almost extra heartbreaking. I have to say, there was a big “twist” at the end that I did not see coming (and that prompted the tears in my text above), and it didn’t feel contrived or fake; it totally fit within the story, and it drove the narrative forward in a way that I did not anticipate. The ending was totally satisfying, and as hard as parts of it were to stomach, I was sad that it was over.
Okay, I lied, one more thing to share from the book, and something that will stay with me a long time:
“The law was one thing — you can march and wave signs around and change a law if you convinced enough white people…You can change the law but you can’t change people and how they treat each other.”
TL;DR: Just amazing. Hard but an incredible read. I’d recommend this book to everyone because it shines a stark light on some of the “forgotten” parts of American history, which feels especially urgent in the current political climate.
If you liked this, try these:
Books I’ve added to my TBR after this one:
The Water Dancer, Ta-Nahesi Coates (this one comes out in September, and I can’t wait!)
