The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead deftly retells history in a fuller, more heartbreaking way than even the reports of the actual events can muster. His last Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Underground Railroad, took a well-known part of US History and brought in touches of magical realism, as well as personal narratives that allowed a window into the possible real lives of slave traders, and their brutalized prey. Whitehead made me think more deeply about the path to freedom and how fraught with danger it was for people like the fictional Cora. Afterall, “Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man.” Whitehead’s fictionalized railroad puts a face on the insidious, and sanctioned system that was slavery. It is hard to look away.
The Nickel Boys, Whitehead’s second Pulitzer Prize winning novel, lays bare another historical event, one that did not come to light until the 2012 exhuming of grave sites at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, even though survivors had been telling their stories of mutilation and rape for years. Many of the boys were tossed into unmarked graves that only surfaced after the school finally closed in 2011. NPR reported that the University of South Florida archeology students found 81 boys died at the site. They were between the ages of 6 and 18. The remains revealed bullet holes, and evidence of torturous beatings.
“Even in death the boys were trouble.” Prologue
Whitehead presents tandem narratives of two fictional residents of Nickel Academy’s specialized education system. Elwood is a young man who records words he learns in a journal and reverently listens to his vinyl of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Turner is a more self-aware survivor who realizes, “...the key to in here is the same as surviving out there — you got to see how people act, and then you got to figure out how to get around them like an obstacle course.” Together, they weave the story of racism and the power of hate. One plays the game unaware he is being manipulated, and the other watches and learns, refusing to get drawn in to the rigged rules set out for African Americans- inside and outside of Nickel. By reimaging this story as fiction, Whitehead fully realizes the brutal history of Dozier into characters that are more evocative and relatable than even interviews from actual survivors of the school.
Problematically, most of the actual stories belong to white survivors. And though they are horrific, evidence from the bodies show a much grimmer story belonging to the African American boys. Elwood, Turner, and the other boys in Nickel Boys give voice to the victimization of the real life boys residing in those graves. Whitehead writes about the casual violence inflicted on Nickel’s residents by the “school’s” staff with a detached quality which serves to amplify the brutality.
The economical sentences, and restraint in description creates a dread in the reader. The lack of elaboration allows the reader to imagine the worst. Moments like Elwood’s recovery from his visit to The Ice Cream Factory, the on-grounds house of horror, are sparse. He comments about his legs, but we never know the extent of the torture visited on him. We read of his wrongful arrest, but the next scene is him being transported to Nickel. We never know about the trial, the testimony exonerating him- we just fill it in as readers. Incidents like this are written matter-of-factly, revealing the casual attitude of the brutalizers, and the acceptance of this type of “education” by the surrounding society as appropriate.
For me, this issue of America’s amnesia with racial profiling and discrimination keeps bubbling up. I write this review hard on the heels of the unforgettable execution of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old unarmed African American out for a run through neighborhoods near his home in Brunswick, Georgia. In a statement, Andrea Young, Executive Director of the ACLU in Georgia, said, “Ahmaud was killed three days before the anniversary of the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin. Both incidents are a reminder that white supremacy has been a foundation for our country and leads repeatedly to the targeting and harming people of color, particularly African Americans.”
Arbery is just the latest in a long history of racial profiling in America. Arbery was out for some exercise when his life ended. Elwood was hitching a ride to take a college class to get ahead when he was arrested and thrown into Nickel. Whether fictional, or true, both were innocent victims of white supremacy.
Whitehead’s two Pulitzer Prize novels span the 1830s-2012, historically. It is not difficult to see how far we have not come. Whitehead drives home, “Nickel was just one place, but if there was one, there were hundreds, hundreds scattered across the land like pain factories.” As long as we continue to ignore, revise, and justify these crimes against humanity, we remain complicit.
The Nickel Boys
by Colson Whitehead
2019. 204 pages.
About Carrie Honaker
Carrie Honaker is a writer currently based in Panama City Beach, Florida. She studied Literature at Florida State University, but has worn many hats including restaurateur and teacher. Carrie is a voracious reader and kitchen sorcery addict who found her inner writer at the Blue Ridge Writing Project in 2010. Most days you can find her plowing through a book, writing or dabbling with a new recipe.
Carrie’s work has appeared in ALCA Lines, Virginia English Journal, and Digital Is. She also regularly writes about experiences in the classroom, moments in the kitchen, and all things travel & restaurants on her site, StrawbabiesandChocolateBeer.com. Currently, she is revising her foodoir about life growing up on a farm in Vermont interspersed with family recipes. You can find her on Twitter: @writeonhonaker, Instagram: @corkdorkva, on Goodreads & Trip Advisor.
