The Nickel Boys

Published Jan. 1, 2019 by Doubleday.

ISBN:
978-0-385-53707-0
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OCLC Number:
1090850760

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5 stars (3 reviews)

Author of The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in 1960s Florida.

Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'.

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where …

1 edition

Grim and powerful

5 stars

Having enjoyed reading and learning from Whitehead's previous novel, the wildly successful The Underground Railroad, I was delighted to be approved for a review copy of this new work, The Nickel Boys. The stories share similarities in that they are both historical fiction that is firmly rooted in historical fact. The Nickel Boys takes place in 1960s 'Jim Crow' America which I have some understanding of thanks to reading biographies of Claudette Colvin and Carolyn Maull Mckinstry. I was prepared for The Nickel Boys to contain violent scenes, however I hadn't steeled myself enough for the sheer sadism that Whitehead depicts. I now have mental images which will take a long time to fade and feel that this story could sit as well in the horror genre as the historical fiction. I know child abusers all over the world have hidden themselves in 'schools' such as the Nickel Academy. The …

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rated it

4 stars