Good Reads / Community Library Notes
The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead, who won the Pulitzer Prize for “The Underground Railroad,” is the story of Elwood Curtis, a young black boy who worshipped the words and values of Martin Luther King Jr. When Elwood washed dishes in the kitchen of the hotel where his mother was a maid, he was challenged to a race to dry the dishes faster than another boy. He won, but found that his prize, a set of encyclopedias that he coveted, was blank on the inside pages, except for the first volume. This was the beginning of his problems.
He went to work at Mr. Marconi’s tobacco shop where he was appreciated. On his way home one night he saw two boys steal candy bars and told them to put them back. They jumped him and beat him up. He remembered King’s words, and kept his “sense of dignity." In high school, his teacher told the class of his experiences sitting at a counter waiting for hours for his coffee and showed them his scars from a tire iron. Elwood played the lead in the high school play for three years. He was a good kid.
When Elwood joined the Civil Rights marches, his teacher introduced him to the varsity basketball players who had never looked at him before. They now shook hands with him and marched together. When he got a ride with Rodney, whom he didn’t know, they were pulled over by a deputy. Elwood didn’t know the car had been stolen. The judge ordered him to Nickel. He was chained next to two white boys in the back of a squad car. Superintendent Spencer tells them the rules. Desmond, a fellow prisoner, tells him about school at Nickel: no grades, no attendance. Only compliance and docility count toward ranking and going home early. He meets the boys in his dorm: Grif, Turner, Desmond, Lonnie, and Black-Mike. He wants to do college work, but they put him in the field, working with tools.
Textbooks are most elementary: Hardy Boys and comic books. A chess set has three men to play with. He rebuilds it and wins two games. When he interceded in an unfair fight in the bathroom, the State cars came for Lonnie, Big Mike, and Elwood. Author Whitehead builds the suspense with menace and unease. Harriet, Elwood’s grandmother, remembers the Jim Crow days, how her father died in jail, and her husband died after trying to break up a scuffle at the pool hall. Elwood was beaten for his part in the fight and sent to hospital where he was given aspirin for his wounds, which were most painful on his legs. The doctor was a sham.
Author Whitehead describes Nickel School: a printing plant publishes a newspaper and a brick-making machine produces 20,000 bricks a day to build the walls. Children as young as five years are boarded there. Elwood goes “out” with Turner and Harper to deliver goods, mostly food, to businesses in a nearby town. They paint a gazebo for Mrs. Davis. They make the job last a few days. A boxing match is scheduled to take place, black vs white, and bets are placed. Griff, the black boy is slated to win, but he promises to throw the fight so the staff and supervisors will make big money, betting on the white boy. But Griff changes his mind and wins two out of three rounds. He is taken away and never seen again.
Does Elwood ever get out of Nickel? What becomes of his life? Do we learn anything about reform schools, about men’s behavior toward other men? Find this fascinating, well-written novel, based on a real reform school in Florida, on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
He went to work at Mr. Marconi’s tobacco shop where he was appreciated. On his way home one night he saw two boys steal candy bars and told them to put them back. They jumped him and beat him up. He remembered King’s words, and kept his “sense of dignity." In high school, his teacher told the class of his experiences sitting at a counter waiting for hours for his coffee and showed them his scars from a tire iron. Elwood played the lead in the high school play for three years. He was a good kid.
When Elwood joined the Civil Rights marches, his teacher introduced him to the varsity basketball players who had never looked at him before. They now shook hands with him and marched together. When he got a ride with Rodney, whom he didn’t know, they were pulled over by a deputy. Elwood didn’t know the car had been stolen. The judge ordered him to Nickel. He was chained next to two white boys in the back of a squad car. Superintendent Spencer tells them the rules. Desmond, a fellow prisoner, tells him about school at Nickel: no grades, no attendance. Only compliance and docility count toward ranking and going home early. He meets the boys in his dorm: Grif, Turner, Desmond, Lonnie, and Black-Mike. He wants to do college work, but they put him in the field, working with tools.
Textbooks are most elementary: Hardy Boys and comic books. A chess set has three men to play with. He rebuilds it and wins two games. When he interceded in an unfair fight in the bathroom, the State cars came for Lonnie, Big Mike, and Elwood. Author Whitehead builds the suspense with menace and unease. Harriet, Elwood’s grandmother, remembers the Jim Crow days, how her father died in jail, and her husband died after trying to break up a scuffle at the pool hall. Elwood was beaten for his part in the fight and sent to hospital where he was given aspirin for his wounds, which were most painful on his legs. The doctor was a sham.
Author Whitehead describes Nickel School: a printing plant publishes a newspaper and a brick-making machine produces 20,000 bricks a day to build the walls. Children as young as five years are boarded there. Elwood goes “out” with Turner and Harper to deliver goods, mostly food, to businesses in a nearby town. They paint a gazebo for Mrs. Davis. They make the job last a few days. A boxing match is scheduled to take place, black vs white, and bets are placed. Griff, the black boy is slated to win, but he promises to throw the fight so the staff and supervisors will make big money, betting on the white boy. But Griff changes his mind and wins two out of three rounds. He is taken away and never seen again.
Does Elwood ever get out of Nickel? What becomes of his life? Do we learn anything about reform schools, about men’s behavior toward other men? Find this fascinating, well-written novel, based on a real reform school in Florida, on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.