Review of The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

*The Nickel Boys* by Colson Whitehead (2019). Published by Doubleday.

Now, I will admit, this is a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while.

Colson Whitehead is one of those authors who has always been on my to read lists, as I knew about the acclaim behind his many books so far, and I always nodded to myself when I saw his work at the bookstore and on the online publications I read for book recommendations.

So what probably convinced me to expedite the process of reading his books, you may ask? I picked up a copy of The Underground Railroad when I was at the thrift store, specifically my favorite Savers around here, and that’s what opened the floodgates.

After reading The Underground Railroad as my book of choice in Los Angeles, I came home from my trip and decided to pick out an audiobook to listen to while doing work.

And that, my friends, is how I ended up listening to The Nickel Boys all the way through finals week.

Let’s get into the review!

The story of a Florida school that was highly abusive, and even killed, towards it students.

In The Nickel Boys, our main character is Elwood Curtis. The story moves back from the 2010s to the 1960s through his perspective, and in the contemporary era, he owns a business in New York City.

As an investigation is incurred in a Florida school called Nickel Academy, the world comes to know the horrors that happened in those halls.

The surviving victims are coming forward with their testimonies, and Curtis himself is grappling with the trauma he faced as a student there.

We then pivot to the sixties, in Tallahassee, when he attended another school. He works and studies hard, and is inspired by the ongoing Civil Rights Movement and leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., and is even selected to take some classes at the local university.

But when he’s hitchhiking with another Black man, the two are accused of stealing a vehicle, and Elwood is sent to the Nickel Academy in the town of Eleanor.

Nickel Academy brands itself as being an alternative school for delinquents, and many of the students attending the school are Black due to racism, profiling, and stereotypes negatively impacting them in life.

Suddenly the nice education Elwood gets is down the train, and the school forces its students to perform hard labor and if they refuse to do something (or do it wrong), they receive really awful beatings and punishments from the people in power. One of the more horrifying things that Elwood witnesses is the sexual abuse, and the fact that some boys, after being punished, disappear and are never seen again.

Of course the Black students are treated worse here, making matters worse for Elwood. When he makes friends with a guy named Turner, he realizes how cynical this guy is and how he views the world, which isn’t too rosy.

Elwood tries to bide his time and get out when he can, but when he helps a student being sexually assaulted, that leads to him being beat. Another time he tries to pen a letter to the government telling them what’s happening in the school, but he’s also beat when this is discovered.

We learn later the real Elwood died while Turner and he tried to escape, as Turner overheard that the administration wanted to kill Elwood for what he died. While on the way out, they shoot Elwood to death, and Turner escapes, leaving his good friend’s body behind at the school.

He later takes on Elwood’s name and lives the life Elwood envisioned, rather than being cynical. In the present day, he prepares to testimony, and admits to his wife who he really is.

Overall Thoughts

This novel is based on a true case, which is just as horrifying as the events described in the book. I had never heard of it before picking this copy of the book up, but I’m glad I read this book.

Fiction teaches us something about the world, making us more empathetic in the process, and I believe it’s books like these that keep me going and reading sometimes.

They describe some really awful things that happened in real life, but it’s our job to learn and make sure they never happen again. Go read this book if you haven’t already—I highly recommend it.

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