The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Fleet
Watch the breakdown
This book is my first read from Colson Whitehead. One of his most popular book’s ‘The Underground Railroad’ is on my TBR list. He also won the Pulitzer Prize for it.
In 1960s Tallahassee, USA, being raised by his grandmother, a teenaged Elwood Curtis is a ‘stick to the book’ person. He has a part-time job, aspires to be better, is passionate about his future and believes strongly like his idol Dr Martin Luther King that he is "as good as anyone." One innocent mistake, however, ends his plans to enrol at an all blacks college and secures him a one-way ticket to Nickels reform school for boys. The sentence…to be confirmed, you have to earn your way out according to the rules. Living during Jim Crow law times, the school was segregated and to the outside world would educate and train inmates to become law-abiding and honest citizens.
To those in the inside, the reality was far from that. Those who did not conform to the unsaid rules were given lashes, sexually assaulted, or taken out back to never be seen again. On his second day at Nickel Elwood meets Turner. They form an unlikely friendship with the two looking at life from completely different angles. Elwood living by Martin Luther King’s “Throw us in jail, and we will still love you” and Turner believing in an eye for an eye and that Elwood is way too naive.
The book is split into three parts. Part 1 covers Elwood’s life leading up to his entrance to the Nickel reform school. Part 2 is daily life in Nickel with all its bumps and twists. And part 3 is mainly what life after Nickel looks like for one of the characters. Which character? You’ll find out…
“I am stuck here, but I’ll make the most of it, Elwood told himself, and make it brief. Everybody back home knew him as even, dependable— nickel would soon understand that about him, too.”
Is that how you’re feeling yeah?!
This is a really intense book. I’m talking have you on the edge and it’s not a thriller book. Even though a fiction novel, to the core it is inspired by a real place, Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a reform school in Florida where horrific events took place. Boys were physically and sexually assaulted, with many unmarked graves being located in recent years.
Yoo from the very jump I was in a daze. Before I even met the main character I’d visited a human cemetery. At this point, full disclosure I’m a sensitive soul. I couldn’t pick up the book for weeks after the main character Elwood received an A* beat down by the school staff. Even now weeks after finishing the book the word White House has a whole different meaning to me. Every time I thought about picking up the book I felt so sad. The way that I felt you’d think that I had received them licks. On reflection, it had a lot to do with the fact that I had recently read a non-fiction memoir book of Lemn Sissay’s childhood and many of the topics overlapped. Especially how brutal some children were treated. Someone’s fiction is someone else’s reality!
I enjoyed reading the continuing inner struggle that Elwood faced as he tried to replicate and live by his hero, Martin Luther King’s values. On a personal level, my heart isn’t built like that I’m riding all the way out. But the way the book was set up with the opposing views of Elwood and Tuner it made me question my thoughts and where I stood on individual inequalities. For example, Elwood made a very bold/couragous/ stupid move, (depending on how you view it) that ultimately cost him his life. No matter how intense the book got, I was in tune and down for the ride. The book made me feel angry, frightened, helpless and also compassion, flicking through each emotion was a whole different story.
Part 3- Life after Nickel was the weakest part, I wouldn’t have missed it at all. I can see how it acted as a breather from the intensity and brutality of the story but felt irrelevant and jarring at times. I got enough from the prologue of the after-effects of Nickel and how peoples lives were never the same. I didn’t need the step by step walkthrough and it didn’t get any emotion from me at all.
“There was a weird thing to the acoustics where the fan covered the boy’s screams but right next to it you heard the staff instuctions perfectly: Hold on to the rail and don’t let go. Make a sound and you’ll get more. Shut your fucking mouth, nigger.”
Length
217 pages. That also includes a prologue, epilogue and afterword. I recommend reading the prologue again after you’ve finished the book, the words hit differently then. When I read it first I was just reading it to get into the book. Basically it was meaningless at that time, and felt like a passing news story. When you read it after, you feel the crunching of bones, the names bring up a face in your head, and emotion leaks from your body.
I’m someone who likes to understand how thoughts and feelings translate into art and creativity, and enjoyed Colson’s afterword. As a reader you are going to take what you want from a book, be it from your own life experience, triggers or preferences.
“To create the two heroes for The Nickel Boys, I borrowed from my own internal dilemma. The last two-and-a-half years have been a time of great division in America – these divisions and disputes have always been with us, but sometimes they’re closer to the surface”
It Hit me when
The whole book was emotional, but this particular incident stung for me. Okay, so there is an annual boxing match that gets everyone hype and gets a lot of attention. Staff and everyone get involved, ignoring the horrific surrounding of where everyone is it is something that many look forward to. On one occasion they even delayed someone’s ‘graduation’ because they wanted him to fight. The big finale is a white boy Vs a black boy and the black boys had won 15 years in a row, giving them a large sense of pride. This is the 1960s in America, where segregation is legal and black people are still found to be lynched by white people. Anyway, this year the favourite, Griff, is told by the prison staff to make sure he loses. Staff put major bets on the game. Griff if not the brightest bulb… Well, that’s being nice, his bulb just about works, but he’s a good fighter. After many blows to his head, dazed and confused he pushes through to win the match. All the black boys are gassed and extremely happy and he’s bawling. They think it’s because he’s so happy he won, but he knows where his story ends. The quote underneath really hit me.
“He was all of them in one black body that night in the ring, and all of them when the white men took him out back to those two iron rings. They came for Griff that night and he never returned. The story spread that he was too proud to take a dive. That he refused to kneel. And if it made the boy’s full better to believe that Griff escaped, broke away...”
Who Should Read It
If you want to understand the atmosphere in America in the 60s this will be good for you. Those interested in Civil Rights Movements and injustice come all the way to the front. Martin Luther King fans round up, round up. This is for sure a book club read because you will get some popping and in-depth conversations going. To be clear, if you’re looking for a light read, homie this is not the book for you.
Seasoning Level
CO2 | Salt | Pepper | Mixed Herbs | All Purpose Seasoning
I’m going with mixed herbs. The jarring bits took away the all-purpose seasoning but the content was strong and made me feel so much.
