This was another one of my reads for Black History Month 2024. I found somewhere, probably on Goodreads, a list of books by black authors that were meaningful to other black authors. When I came across this pick, the 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner, I read the description and something just stuck out to me. Probably the injustice, which arguably is something of a theme in black literature, what with the gross injustices imparted upon many black citizens, especially in the 1960s. Let’s just say that this book was well worth the read.
The Nickel Boys
Author: Colson Whitehead
Pages: 213
Format: Paperback
Published: July 16, 2019
Publisher: Anchor
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: February 25, 2024
My rating: 
Synopsis
In 1960s Tallahassee, a black boy named Elwood Curtis is unfairly sentenced to the Nickel Academy, a juvenile reformatory which the book cover describes best as “a grotesque chamber of horrors.” While at Nickel, Elwood befriends Turner, and together they work to survive and plan for their futures. But even the future doesn’t quite turn out as they’d hoped.
Thoughts
There’s an element of this book that I wasn’t expecting, which was the framing story, or flash-forwards, to years after the closure of the Nickel Academy. We find out that there are human remains discovered, really just the bones, on the grounds of Nickel. It brings to light some aspects of the Academy that some people, like Elwood Curtis, would just as soon prefer to forget. But he can’t forget, and this book is essentially his recollection of his time as one of the Nickel Boys. There are some breaks in the novel where we go back to the future Elwood as he’s making his way from New York back to Tallahassee in the wake of the discoveries there. There is no warning and it takes some context to realize we’re back in the future or back in the past or whenever. That took me out of the story when it happened. But that is also my main issue with this book.
The character of Elwood Curtis was really fantastically written. He’s a good-hearted kid who is constantly in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thus is how he ends up wrongfully sentenced to Nickel in the first place. And while there, it takes him time to learn to just keep to himself and try to make it through.
The beating he gets in the early part of the story, while brutal, isn’t too graphic. Instead, it’s more of a lesson that we, the reader, get about how horrible this place really is. While awaiting his turn to get beaten, Elwood tries to add logic to an illogical situation by counting the number of whips each boy before him is getting, just so he can know what to expect. In the end, he gets the worst beating and ends up in the infirmary for longer than the others.
But the time in the infirmary is also where he meets Turner, who will turn out to be his best friend while in the Nickel Academy. Turner has been there long enough to figure out little schemes to get by and avoid trouble, but also wants to get out earlier than waiting for graduation.
Together, Elwood and Turner, along with the reader, discover just how bad things can get. The beatings at the White House (or the Ice Cream Factory as the white kids called it) could be avoided by keeping your head down and doing your time. Sometimes. Sometimes, you would get dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to be taken to the White House.
The boys talk about others who have been taken “out back” and never return. Elwood and Turner even witness this themselves. What we discover is that some kids are taken “out back” to be killed and buried in unmarked graves. These are what are discovered some years in the future.
To know that this is based on a real story of a real reform school that operated for 111 years is a troubling reminder of how horrible the human race can be to each other. That something like this could go on for so long, you can’t tell me that people on the outside didn’t know what was going on. They just turned a blind eye to it. Figured that it’s a reform school for troubled youth so there’s bound to be some punishments that get out of hand. It sickens me to be part of a race that would do this to its own kind. And I’m not just talking as a white man (although there is that to), but as a member of the human race.
Conclusion
This was really more of a 4.5 stars, mostly because of the time jumps that were a little jarring. But this is a book that should be read by all. And not just for Black History Month. It’s a story of injustice, friendship, loyalty, and the good and bad of humanity.
