The Nickel Boys

THE NICKEL BOYS

by Colson Whitehead

 

Awards: Kirkus Winner 2019, Pulitzer Winner 2020

 

Nominations: Aspen Words Longlist 2020, Carnegie Longlist 2020, Dayton Literary Peace Finalist 2020, Dublin Finalist 2021, Goodreads Finalist 2019, LA Times Finalist 2019, National Book Longlist 2019, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2019, Rathbones Folio Longlist 2020

 

Date Read: November 14, 2020

 

I would love to say that Nickel Boys is heartbreaking, which it indeed is, but brutal seems a more appropriate word. This latest from Whitehead follows the boys of a reform school in Florida and the ways in which they coped with and survived the violent, sadistic and impossible environment they were thrust into.

 

Elwood is a smart kid with a bright future. In his 15 brief years he proves himself to be trustworthy, intellectually curious and ambitious. His one fatal flaw, however, is that his skin has more melanin. In other words, Elwood is black. I still cannot understand how a skin pigment can bestow a death sentence, yet here we are in the present and the same holds true.

 

Elwood strives for social justice and equality, putting his safety on the line for protests against segregation. His bright mind allows him to begin college courses before he has finished high school and it is the trip to college that Elwood’s life takes a tragic turn. Accused of grand theft auto, he is sent to Nickel Academy for an indefinite period of time.

 

The one beautiful aspect of his time there is Elwood’s relationship with Turner. Turner shows Elwood the ropes and helps him to get assigned a relatively easy job. And in the end, it’s Turner who essentially saves Elwood’s life and preserves his legacy, obliterating his own identity in the process.

 

The amount of cruelty and sadism he confronts is astounding (even his lawyer for F’s sake!). Yet through these ordeals he is still drawn to the words of Martin Luther King who calls for agape love in the struggle for equal rights:

 

“Throw us in jail, and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities after midnight hours, and drag us out onto some wayside road, and beat us and leave us half-dead, and we will still love you. But be ye assured that will wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom.”

 

These words of MLK are humanity at its most ideal, our most beautiful. Yet in the more than half century since they were spoken, nothing has really changed for the black community. Technology has laid bare the injustices that occur almost daily. So if instead of love, the black community decides to burn it all down, I would completely understand. I get it. And I would say “Burn, mother fucker, burn.” 

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