The Nickel Boys: A Novel

A beautifully written book, the story of Elwood, his friends, and their time at a "reform" school will haunt you. It takes the reader through different time periods and perspectives, and includes several facts taken from the real-life inspiration for the boys' institution. Riveting, heartbreaking, and utterly brilliant, this quintessential American novel both delights and disgusts... You won't be able to put it down!

If my review were to confine itself to the first few chapters, I would be shouting from the rooftops in praise of an intimate look at life as experienced from a student in a reform school in the deep south during the 1960s. The genius of the writer was in getting me into the body shell of a survivor of a ‘school’ that got away with abuse and murder for more than a hundred years. Mind you, it is a novel of fiction, but is based on a real school and is told so well that many will forget it is a work of fiction. However, my review is based on the entire book. Bearing in mind that four stars is high praise, I don’t want you to get the impression that this is not a terrific read, because it is. For many readers, it will, or should become a transformational read. The author doesn’t bludgeon us with horror. Rather, he slips us into the scenes and memories. So, why lower the rating to four stars? It tends to get mired down into sadness and misery. Not in an especially depressing manner, though. Had it become depressing, I would have lowered my rating still further. I guess what I’m expressing is actually almost a confession. I grew up in Southern California in a small town that, during the fifties and sixties, boasted of its ‘success’ in remaining wasp. Most residents would have sworn that they had not a single racist bone in their bodies. They would have decried the segregation and inhumane treatment of blacks in the south. Yet, they took pride in a police force that boasted of picking up men passing through town after working at the local cement factory and releasing them at the town’s boundary with Watts. Yet, that very city went on to survive, even thrive, during integration once the real estate folks were forced to sell without discrimination. It even, for a second time in its history, became an “All American City.” So, what I am getting at is this: Colson Whitehead has put together a narrative, based largely on fact, and weaved us an intimate tale of life, and death, of young men who made mistakes in judgment while pursuing simple pleasures taken for granted by children in more affluent neighborhoods, and who were then punished more severely for their lapses in judgment than were white children guilty of equally poor judgment. Perhaps the brief excerpt will better explain my meaning… BLUSH FACTOR: The eff-word pops up now and then, so you may want to be choosy when deciding to whom you will share this novel. Still, the insight you will gain into life for a young black person growing up in America, especially during segregation will outweigh concerns for language. WRITING & EDITING: Mechanically, first rate editing and the writing is solid. EXCERPT ‘…Flipping pages during lulls. Elwood’s shifts at Marconi’s provided models for the man he wished to become and separated him from the type of Frenchtown boy he was not. His grandmother had long steered him from hanging out with the local kids, whom she regarded as shiftless, clambering into rambunction. The tobacco shop, like the hotel kitchen, was a safe preserve. Harriet raised him strict, everyone knew, and the other parents on their stretch of Brevard Street helped keep Elwood apart by holding him up as an example. When the boys he used to play cowboys and Indians with chased him down the street every once in a while or threw rocks at him, it was less out of mischief than resentment. People from his block stopped in Marconi’s all the time, and his worlds overlapped. One afternoon, the bell above the door jangled and Mrs. Thomas walked in. “Hello, Mrs. Thomas,” Elwood said. “There’s some cold orange in there.” “I think I just might, El,” she said. A connoisseur of the latest styles, Mrs. Thomas was dressed this afternoon in a homemade yellow polka-dot dress she’d copied from a magazine profile of Audrey Hepburn. She was quite aware that few women in the neighborhood could have worn it with such confidence, and when she stood still it was hard to escape the suspicion that she was posing, waiting for the pop of flashbulbs. Mrs. Thomas had been Evelyn Curtis’s best friend growing up. One of Elwood’s earliest memories was of sitting on his mother’s lap on a hot day while they played gin. He squirmed to see his mother’s cards and she told him not to fuss, it was too hot out. When she got up to visit the outhouse, Mrs. Thomas snuck him sips of her orange soda. His orange tongue gave them away and Evelyn half-heartedly scolded them while they giggled. Elwood kept that day close. Mrs. Thomas opened her purse to pay for her two sodas and this week’s Jet. “You keeping up with that schoolwork?” “Yes, ma’am.” “I don’t work the boy too hard,” Mr. Marconi said. “Mmm,” Mrs. Thomas said. Her tone was suspect. Frenchtown ladies remembered the tobacco store from its disreputable days and considered the Italian an accomplice to domestic miseries. “You keep doing what you’re supposed to, El.” She took her change and Elwood watched her leave. His mother had left both of them; it was possible she sent her friend postcards from this or that place, even if she forgot to write him. One day Mrs. Thomas might share some news. Mr. Marconi carried Jet, of course, and Ebony. Elwood got him to pick up The Crisis and The Chicago Defender, and other black newspapers. His grandmother and her friends subscribed, and he thought it strange that the store didn’t sell them. “You’re right,” Mr. Marconi said. He pinched his lip. “I think we used to Whitehead, Colson. The Nickel Boys (pp. 22-24). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. BOTTOM LINE Readers who are open to a narrative that deals with sadness and hints of tragedy, but vacant violence and suspense, will probably find “Colson Whitehead’s “The Nickel Boys” to be an entertaining, educational, way to gain some understanding of life for your typical black kid during the sixties. The time spent will make the reader the richer for his/her investment. It might not change the world, but, for that reader, it might well change his view of the world. Four stars out of five.

The most horrific detail about this incredible novel is that the Nickel Academy is based on a real nightmarish "reform school" called the Dozier School for Boys in Florida, that somehow was allowed to remain open for 111 years. In the aftermath, students performing an archeological dig on its grounds uncovered a secret graveyard with countless broken bodies. The book opens on a scene like this, and introduces the reader to Elwood Curtis, a black New Yorker who lived at Nickel as a teenager and has just learned of the discovery. In 1963, Elwood, an idealistic Tallahassee youth who follows the Civil Rights Movement and listens faithfully to a recording of Dr. King's messages, has been encouraged to take early college courses by a teacher who sees his potential. Only on his first day, he hitches a ride in a car he is unaware is stolen. The police assume he was joyriding, and he ends up in Nickel Academy, which is more like a prison, with hard labor and the black children's supplies sold to grocers and restaurants in town. Severe beatings await those who step out of line, and the ones perceived as the worst offenders just disappear. Still, Elwood remains optimistic that he will return home soon, and can convince the government of the abuses in the school. Turner, his closest friend and a realist, tries to convince him to keep his head down and not make waves, but Elwood's conscience will not allow it. The story is heart-wrenching and powerful, with a twist that I won't spoil. It does contain a glimmer of hope in that the future Elwood's life is promising; he starts his own moving company and marries. But the pain of his experience at Nickel always remains. This novel will stick with me and was fully deserving of the awards it received.

Whitehead has a brilliant style that is crisp and sharp and emotionally rich, and he’s a master at structure and revealing details in the exact right way to leave maximum impact. Literally jaw-dropping at several points, and overall gorgeous and devastating. Absolute essential read, one of the best books of the 21st century.

Was not an easy story to read and it woke me up to the reality of the Jim Crow era and the violence and systemic racism African-Americans endured. A must read.

Unlike some, I appreciated the fact that the physical violence and sexual assault was not given in graphic detail. We were given broad strokes of information and the rest was left for us to fill in. That was enough. The book kept my interest and moved along well, except when it side-tracked to give a long back story of a minor character. On occasion the writing jumped quickly from time and place in the same chapter, and I was briefly unsure of which character's voice I was hearing. In addition, like a lot of authors that write stories that cross over many years of a character's life, the chapters began to alternate between the past and the future. Most of the time I think this type of "time travel" is unnecessary because if the story is good enough it can be told chronologically. In this case the twist at the end was not as impactful because it was clear to me what was unfolding. Overall I enjoyed it and it ended on a hopeful note. I'm glad this important story is being told.

While this book is fiction it was inspired by the story of the Dozier School for boys in Marianna, Florida. This book took me back to the feelings I held after reading the Reformatory. Both books spoke of Boot Hill the secret graveyard where they buried the boys whom they beat to death. Both books told stories of this wretched place. This book like The Reformatory are books that need to be read and talked about to this generation and the generations to come.

There have been a number of ways America has oppressed black people over the centuries. Slavery, segregation, and voter suppression are the most obvious examples, but one of the lesser known ways was how the juvenile justice system tried to break young black men down before they reached adulthood. This novel from the award-winning author shines a light on the juvenile justice system of the segregated South and how it tried to rob young black men of their dignity and even their very lives. Based on the real Dozier School in Florida, Mr. Whitehead follows a young Elwood who is enamored by the Civil Rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elwood is bright and on his way to college, but a serious miscarriage of justice finds him in the Nickel Academy where the supervisors are corrupt and have no problem inflicting horrible indignities on their wards, or even snatching them from their beds, murdering them, and burying them behind the school. As I was reading this book, I couldn’t help but think of the Stephen King’s “The Shawshank Redemption” only the prisoners are minors. Elwood tries to keep his head up and excel, but the school is designed to break him down. Whether or not the the school succeeds would be to spoil too much. Needless to say, there is a twist at the end that I was not expecting. While I liked this book, I have to say I was not as impressed with this one as I was with Mr. Whitehead’s previous book, “The Underground Railroad.” In that book, Mr. Whitehead succeeded brilliantly at injecting a level of dread and horror in every page. There was a chance for that here too, but the feeling of this book had something more akin to the Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil. I feel like this could have worked, and an argument could be made that I need to re-read this book, but I never felt the same horror in this book as I did in “The Underground Railroad.” Overall, this book shines a light on a relatively unknown and terrible part of the history of the segregated South. I would recommend this book to people who are interested in Colson Whitehead’s previous works and in little known tales of the segregated South’s terrors.

Excellent read. One of best I have read in years. Keen for my daughter to read it but quite confronting subject matter.

Bella scrittura, inizialmente agile e nervosa, con un'ironia sottile e tagliente. Che poi, però si perde lasciando spazio ad una seria e sacrosanta accusa sociale, contro iriformatori per minori bianchi e neri, che sono luoghi di orrori diversi a seconda del colore della pelle. Se è nera, è peggio anche nell'America dei nostri giorni. Pur condividendo il punto di vista dell'autore, trovo che questo libro politicamente corretto non sia però per nulla innovativo . Mi ha fatto ricordare alcune pagine di Steinbeck, e me ne ha fatto rimpiangere lo spessore letterario.

Produto perfeito e recebido adequadamente.

Wonderful story, to fall in love with Elwood and at then you find what friends are capable of, that is what friendship is about.

I am extremely satisfied with my purchase. It is a short book, very high quality material. It came in pristine conditions! I am in the middle of reading but you know when you feel this book will become a favorite? I am loving the way this book is going and i am waiting to finish it to confirm my assumption, bu I believe I will consider it a must read. It was super affordable (got it for 4€ something)