The Nickel Boys

In the 1960s, bright but troubled teen Elwood Curtis is sentenced to the Nickel Academy, a notorious Florida reform school where survival is not guaranteed. Amid the brutality of institutional life, he befriends the cynical Turner, who sees Elwood’s idealism as a source of trouble. But as conditions worsen, both boys find their outlooks – and their loyalties – put to the test.

Fresh off the alt-history heels of the Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead did a 180 to craft The Nickel Boys, a fictionalized take on the real-life Dozier School for Boys that reads as all too painfully real. A frank and unflinching look at institutional violence (beatings, rapes, and covered-up murders), the novel delivers shock without sensationalism. Whitehead’s straightforward approach and efficient prose create a matter-of-factness that lets the book’s horrors speak for themselves. At the same time, however, he also finds room to explore an ideological conflict between allies: Elwood, a steadfast believer in the power of truth and goodness and Turner, who is committed to doing what is necessary for survival. The complexity of their friendship builds toward an ending that would amount to a cheap twist in lesser hands but is played deftly here.

The Nickel Boys is not for the faint of stomach, and it takes a careful eye to catch everything going on beneath the surface gloss of casual violence, but for those up to the task, it is a book not easily forgotten.