Weekly Reader: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead; Follow-Up To The Underground Railroad Surpasses Expectations
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book that won an award in 2019 (Time Magazine Best Books of the Decade)
Spoilers: When a book becomes such a monster hit, there is much speculation and anticipation whether the author's follow-up will be just as well regarded as the previous hit. Take Colson Whitehead for example. His 2016 novel, The Underground Railroad was everywhere. The ciritcal and commercial success hit multiple best seller lists and won various awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Award for Fiction.
Naturally, when Whitehead's novel, The Nickel Boys was published in 2019, there were concerns whether it could compete against Railroad. Could Colson Whitehead top himself?
Fortunately, Whitehead proves that the successor can more than meet the standards set by the predecessor. The Nickel Boys is just as much a hit as The Underground Railroad. Time Magazine listed it as one of the Best Books of the Decade. It is a finalist for the National Book Award.
As for writing, The Nickel Boys not only meets The Underground Railroad in terms of style, it surpasses it in terms of characterization, theme, and quality.
The Nickel Boys takes place in the Nickel Academy, the fictional equivalent to the real-life Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Mariana, Florida. The Dozier School ran from 1900-2011 and gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, torture and murder of the boys by staff. In 2009, the school underwent a full investigation after the school failed a state investigation. The investigation included exploring the various unmarked graves on the site which told of various boys who were tortured and beaten to death or shot while trying to escape. The authorities identified 55 burials and nearly 100 deaths at the school.
Whitehead took the inspiration of this sad true story and created a novel that is heartbreaking, but also challenging with its themes of institutional racism and the power and control certain authority figures have towards those who are perceived as weaker than them.
This book is set in the early 1960's and focuses mostly on Elwood Curtis, a bright African-American boy from Tallahassee, Florida. Elwood works at the Richmond Hotel kitchen and reads books like classics and the Hardy Boys in his spare time. He lives with his grandmother after the disappearance of his parents who moved west to find work and never returned.
The greatest gift that Elwood ever received is a record of Martin Luther King's speeches. He plays them on an endless loop and is drawn by King's philosophies of nonviolence and loving one's enemies. In school, he is committed to his studies and social activism, the latter of which worries his grandmother.
One day, Elwood hitches a ride in a stolen car to his college classes when he and the other riders are arrested. Elwood is sentenced to The Nickel Academy, which is the closest thing to Hell on Earth to put things mildly. At The Nickel Academy, Elwood is subjected first hand to the mistreatments and punishments, including beatings, starvation, sexual assault, and torture. Not to mention the private rooms where those considered the worst offenders are sent and don't always come back out. Through it all, Elwood tries to hold fast to Martin Luther King's philosophies.
While this is going on, we peer into Elwood's current life as a New York City businessman. Even though other former inmates have reunited through social media, Elwood has not. He tries to live only in the present, though his troubled current life suggests that his past as a Nickel Boy still stays with him. He suffers from PTSD and is very uncomfortable in his current relationship. His past at the Nickel Academy isn't far behind as an investigation uncovers various unmarked graves and Elwood has to confront the Academy with all the suffering that he endured.
The Nickel Boys is the kind of book that is hard to forget. It is gripping and terrifying to read about how cruel and dehumanizing some people can be to other human beings. Much of the behavior is built upon the racist view of looking at someone as an "other", someone who they perceive as less than human. Once a certain people are dehumanized, it becomes easier for some to do deplorable things to them.
The moments between the inmates and the sadistic employees are gripping because of the abuse that the boys endure because of the racist dehumanization.
This book invokes comparisons to Native Son and Invisible Man in how it challenges not only the individual racist acts, but the institutional racism and conferred dominance that allow those acts to exist. Similar to Invisible Man's haunting Battle Royale chapter there is an early example of the systematic racism that Elwood endures. While working at the hotel, Elwood enters into an employee contest in which a fine set of encyclopedias are the prize. Elwood wins the contest, but loses in life when he learns that the encyclopedias are dummy copies and have nothing written in them. Elwood is set up to be humiliated by a society that demeans him for their own amusement.
Unlike the Narrator of Invisible Man however, Elwood's pacifism is not held up for ridicule and setting him up for constant humiliation by white society. While he is abused in Nickel, he reveals a true strength despite his captivity. He stands up for a fellow inmate who is threatened with sexual assault and gets beaten as a result. Another time, he takes King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" to heart and composes his own "Letter from a Nickel Academy" exposing the school and the staff for the house of horrors that it is. Even though Elwood sometimes finds it hard, he repeats the words, "Do to us what you will and we will still love you," like a mantra even when he doesn't want to.
While Elwood takes the path of nonviolence, another inmate proves to be a contrast. Elwood befriends Jack Turner, a more cynical inmate. Jack doesn't have the same ideals as Elwood. He is from a more violent criminal background. He is sharper, fiery, and prefers to make his point clear with a fist and sometimes a smart comment. He is more of a fighter and is willing to challenge his captivity and the staff through action. To Whitehead's credit, he never pushes one view over the other. Instead the book suggests that people challenge racism and their forced circumstances in different ways and that there is no one specific way that people can, or should, do it.
A plot twist opens many possibilities and causes the Reader to rethink the characters and themes. But it also says that Elwood and Jack's abilities to challenge the system around them will be remembered and in the present, put them in a situation to confront this dark past so that it can never be repeated.
The Nickel Boys is more than a successful best-selling and critically acclaimed follow-up to The Underground Railroad. With its better writing, compelling characters, and strong theme, it is the superior.
