A tragedy worth reading: A review of ‘The Nickel Boys’
“You can change the law, but you can’t change people and how they treat each other.”
That was more hard-hitting than I expected it to be. Even though, I knew it was going to be a rough ride, but I wasn’t expecting it to have as much of an impact on me as it did. Published in 2019, Colson Whitehead’s ‘The Nickel Boys,’ follows the story of an African American boy, Elwood Curtis, in the early 1960s. After being unjustly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory (Nickel Academy), Elwood is forced to experience the cruel and abusive environment of the institution. Along the way, Elwood befriends another boy, Turner, and together they face the racism, corruption, and dark secrets of Nickel Academy, things found in most American juvenile systems during this period.
I was astonished to find out that this book was loosely inspired by real life events that took place at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. Dr Erin Kimmerle and her archaeology students from the University of South Florida conducted forensic studies of the grave sites at this school, evidence which Colson claimed was “invaluable.” From there, he wrote ‘The Nickel Boys.’
Elwood Curtis is the protagonist of the novel, his story serving as a lens through which the racial injustices of the 1960s are explored. Despite being an extremely intelligent and morally grounded teenager, Elwood’s life takes a drastic turn when he is wrongly accused of a crime and is sent to Nickel Academy. There, he becomes a helpless victim of the racism, corruption, and physical and emotional abuse of the institution. It was hard to see him struggle but it was also inspiring to see him remain principled and optimistic.
Serving as a microcosm, Nickel Academy embodies the unjust discrimination and mistreatment of African Americans prevalent at the time. The legal system in the novel is also presented as extremely unjust and racially biased, a fact which is important to bring to attention.
His friend, Turner, however, has a more cynical outlook on life. The boys’ relationship kind of reminded me of Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger – Turner is the one to show Elwood the ropes of Nickel Academy. Turner is less idealistic than Elwood, a trait which makes him extremely cautious and sceptical when it comes to some of Elwood’s defiant ideas. Additionally, he is street-smart, a quality which helps him navigate the oppressive nature of Nickel Academy and ultimately survive its injustices. His evolution throughout the novel and his agreement to finally help Elwood at the end made him a very complicated, yet well fleshed-out character…possibly my favourite.
I loved how this book addressed the issue of racism in 1960s America. The impact it had on African American individuals was shocking, and it was hard to see how many lives were ruined because of it. I think the novel does an excellent job in explaining how institutional racism works. Serving as a microcosm, Nickel Academy embodies the unjust discrimination and mistreatment of African Americans prevalent at the time. The legal system in the novel is also presented as extremely unjust and racially biased, a fact which is important to bring to attention. Set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement, the novel highlights the segregation of American society at the time – one part that shocked me the most was the segregation of the academy into ‘blacks,’ and ‘whites.’ Jaimie, a boy of Mexican descent, creates a hard time for the staff when they try to decide whether he should live in the white dorms or the black dorms – it just felt utterly ridiculous.
Without ruining the plot, this book includes a very well-placed and shockingly good narrative twist – my mouth was literally hanging open when it was revealed. This twist (which gave details about the fate of a certain character) truly deepened the impact this novel had on me.
One very harsh criticism I have of this book was the order of events. The narrative unfolds over different time periods and is divided into several parts. Although I thought it was a clever structural choice, especially when it came to the twist, jumping between the present day and the 60s was hard to keep up with at points. I also thought that it interrupted the pace of the book sometimes, making it hard for the book to maintain consistent momentum.
However, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to absolutely anyone. Exploring themes such as racism, justice, resilience, and trauma, this book’s moral message will leave you astounded.
4/5
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The Nickel Boys / Nickel Boys—My Take on the Book vs. the Movie
By Don Carter
Colson Whitehead’s novel, The Nickel Boys, is searing, but the RaMell Ross cinematic adaptation, Nickel Boys, left me feeling chilly.
When I learned that Mr. Whitehead, a critically acclaimed author who I’d come to admire, had written a new novel based on a “notorious reform school in Florida,” I was intrigued, because after I’d entered junior high school in Jacksonville in the early 60s, I’d hear boys from rougher neighborhoods talk about having been sent, or having been threatened with being sent, or knowing someone who was recently sent, to an infernal campus they spoke of simply, but with icy coldness befitting the grave, as “Marianna.” The nightmare place they warned against was the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a state facility in the country town that lent the place its common name. In the book and movie, the Marianna campus is fictitiously called the Nickel Academy, or simply Nickel.
All the stories those boys told painted a picture, grim and gritty, of one unthinkably horrid site, but I was a good boy; there was no chance of my being sent there and I did not know how much truth was told in those stories of beatings and torture. Nevertheless, I could never forget them. It now has been undeniably proven that boys were tortured and sometimes murdered and buried in unmarked graves at that “school,” which was funded with taxpayer money. State lawmakers have apologized now for atrocities the state allowed—and committed—and efforts are underway at last to compensate victims still living. But no individual has ever been legally held to account for the crimes.
When I learned of the novel about that place, I could not wait to read it. I’d been introduced to Whitehead’s work by way of “Underground Railroad,” an engrossing novel which was turned into an equally commanding series released by Amazon Prime. His new novel, “The Nickel Boys,” was equally compelling. It painted a picture of a conscientious lad whose name was Elwood Curtis. Abandoned by parents and raised by his saintly grandmother, he grew up in a part of town that some considered a “ghetto”—the part of Tallahassee, the state Capital, that bore the designation of “Frenchtown.” Elwood, en route to begin taking college classes though still enrolled in high school, hitched a ride with an unknown man who turned out to be a car thief. He was unjustly sent to the Nickel Academy although he’d done nothing wrong.
The novel paints a gruesome picture of awful things that happened there, to him and to other boys—and of other illegal acts routinely committed by officials at the school. The most memorable line from the novel jumps to the present day: “In New York City there lived a Nickel Boy who went by the name of Elwood Curtis.”
When I learned that the novel had been made into a movie, I could hardly wait to see if it would meet my lofty expectations. After all, it was based on Mr. Whitehead’s work. But I found the film disappointing. It almost made me mad—but not really. The problem is that the movie maker, in my humble opinion, put too much effort into flexing his creative muscle rather than depicting a gripping story—using clever camera angles, switching points of view and jumping through points in time. What those artistic flourishes did was make the film often hard to follow, especially in the beginning. While the novel shows how his thinking was formed, the movie glosses over important aspects of Elwood’s childhood, where his noble thoughts were incubated. And the movie shows baffling images of segregated body parts—arms, knees and elbows—that you must work really hard to connect to an actual character.
I approached the movie wanting, among many things, to see if actors portraying main characters would look as I’d imagined they did while reading the book. But it took too long—much too long—before you actually saw their faces. And as the point of view switches, showing the same scene through the eyes of different players, the results mainly add uncertainty. You’re left wondering if a technical glitch was causing segments to be repeated unintentionally. At one point, the opening scenes from the 1958 movie “The Defiant Ones”—which starred Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis—pop up for no apparent reason, making you wonder, again, if there was a problem with your TV or streaming service. I came to appreciate the way that themes displayed in both films reflect each other, but the execution caused unnecessary confusion. And although Black children once were considered “alligator bait” in the Jim Crow South, the appearance of such creatures in the movie was a little baffling, even if symbolically sound. (There are no gators in the novel.)
When the movie skips to the present—and it is not clear initially that that’s what’s taking place—the camera repeatedly focuses on the back of a gentleman’s head, but it eventually becomes completely understandable why you don’t see his face at first, and that’s a reference to the pivotal line about a Nickel Boy who lives in New York and goes by the name of Elwood Curtis.
Bottom line: It’s a great novel but a questionable movie. I highly recommend the book. The movie, not so much, unless you’re a critic wannabe like me.
Wow! I will definitely be adding this to my ‘to read’ list. The concept of institutional racism is a very important matter to cover and I think this book will touch me profoundly! Can’t wait to read it 🙂