The Nickel Boys
As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides "physical, intellectual and moral training" so the delinquent boys in their charge can become "honorable and honest men." In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back." Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King's ringing assertion "Throw us in jail and we will still love you." His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. The tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys' fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
7mentions
6people
2020–2026years
86% recommend14% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I tried to read a mix of things, especially "classics I never got around to." I didn't meet my personal target of 30 books (got sidetracked writing my blog), but definitely read things that stuck with me.
Notable and beautiful
- "The Nickel Boys" by Colson Whitehead
- "Blind Sight" by Meg Howrey
- "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. LeGuin
Non-fiction
- "Workflow"
- "Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D"
- "Debugging: The 9 Indispensible Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems"
The rest (all first-time reads)
- "Absolution" by Jeff Vandermeer (I enjoyed it but it was kind of unnecessary)
- "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte (I don't get the fascination with it)
- "Strange Pictures" by Uketsu (odd)
- "Starship Troopers" by Heinlein
- "Rendezvous with Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke
- "Ubik" by Philip K. Dick
- "Mickey 7" by Edward Ashton
- "Fugitive Telemetry" and "System Collapse" by Martha Wells
- "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson (I was surprisingly into it)
- "Glass Houses" by Madeline Ashby
- "Cover Her Face" by P.D.James
- "The Crystal Shard" by R.A.Salvatore (I needed to see what Drizzt is all about)
- "James" by Percival Everett (maybe my biggest disappointment of the year)
- "Alien Clay" by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- "Some Desperate Glory" by Emily Tesh
- "Sea of Rust" by C. Robert Cargill
- So I see someone has taken Naomi Kanakia’s essay, “Contemporary Literary Novels Are Haunted by the Absence of Money”, to heart.
In fact, far from the contention that "Steinbecks" of the world no longer exist - they are prolific, and commercially successful, in a wide variety of Genres. Indeed, given Saul Bellow only published his last novel in the last 25 years, it seems somewhat callous to bifurcate the great from the good so chronologically.
Percival Everett immediately comes to mind - with Pulitzer Prize-winning James, a nuanced and insightful retelling of Huckleberry Finn, or 'I Am Not Sydney Poitier' which works almost as an homage to Steinbeck.
'The Nickel Boys' by Colson Whitehead I'd argue surpasses most of Steinbeck's more popular canon (Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row etc...). A magnificent novel in the very best of the american tradition.
'A Visit from the Goon Squad' by Jennifer Egan is probably tied for the best 21st Century Pulitzer winner with Jayne Anne Phillips' 'Night Watch' -both Steinbeck-esque in their charting of social mores in the face of an ever-changing culture rendered as the symbol and signifier drenched shadows of capitalism against the cave wall of society.
Looking at the Booker Prize since Paul Beatty, I'd also highlight 'Shuggie Bain' - Douglas Stuart's opus about growing up with an alcoholic mother in the working class Glasgow of the 1980s, or 'Prophet Song' - the requiem for a mother of four trying to preserve her family as a far-right totalitarian regime takes control of Ireland and suspends the Irish constitution.
- I check back on Derick Sivers recommendations often at https://sive.rs/book
See below for some recommendations based on my 2020 reading.
Fiction recommendations:
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. This book absolutely wrecked me emotionally (in a good way) for weeks after reading it
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. I enjoyed this even more than the Underground Railroad, which was also great. Both also won a Pulitzer for what it’s worth.
- The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea. This book gave me a glimpse into what it’s like for Mexicans who immigrate to the US, and the storytelling was just wonderful.
Non-fiction recommendations:
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Mix together equal parts science, indigenous knowledge and myth, botany, and wonderful writing and you get this book. I love Kimmerer’s voice (both in terms of her writing and her performance of the audiobook) and I read Gathering Moss by her this year as well because she’s just that good.
- American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. In my opinion is the definitive book about the atomic bomb and Oppenheimer. I also read The Dead Hand by David E. Hoffman and I think that was a pretty good follow up about the arms race and Cold War that came after.
- Barbarian Days by William Finnegan. I knew nothing and cared little about surfing before this book. I couldn’t put it down after I picked it up though. I’ve heard the audiobook is great so I might just read it again in that format because it was that good.
Good luck with your reading!
- I have time for a solid sleep schedule, lots of exercise, work, and at least three other hobbies (bicycles, metalworking, and skateboarding) so I think so!
Fiction recommendations:
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. This book absolutely wrecked me emotionally (in a good way) for weeks after reading it
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. I enjoyed this even more than the Underground Railroad, which was also great. Both also won a Pulitzer for what it’s worth.
- The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea. This book gave me a glimpse into what it’s like for Mexicans who immigrate to the US, and the storytelling was just wonderful.
Non-fiction recommendations:
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Mix together equal parts science, indigenous knowledge and myth, botany, and wonderful writing and you get this book. I love Kimmerer’s voice (both in terms of her writing and her performance of the audiobook) and I read Gathering Moss by her this year as well because she’s just that good.
- American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. In my opinion is the definitive book about the atomic bomb and Oppenheimer. I also read The Dead Hand by David E. Hoffman and I think that was a pretty good follow up about the arms race and Cold War that came after.
- Barbarian Days by William Finnegan. I knew nothing and cared little about surfing before this book. I couldn’t put it down after I picked it up though. I’ve heard the audiobook is great so I might just read it again in that format because it was that good.
There are so many more but I think those are a good start. If you want recommendations in a certain genre I can probably give some because I’ve read widely over the years.
- I’m not shaming him, but the idea that Wolf Hall and The Nickel Boys are “trash” is bizarre and, as I said, ridiculously dismissive. They both won multiple national-level awards for best novel of the year. This is also ridiculously dismissive:
> It helps no one to know that you are one additional person who likes a successful commercial product (unless someone is trying to buy you a birthday present, but we don't know you)
First of all, the rank condescension is really not ok. Second of all, it wasn’t that they were “commercially successful” (another argument dripping with condescension), it’s that they had unanimous critical approval, and that Wolf Hall in particular is widely regarded as among the best English-language novels since World War II. Many critics consider it the best historical novel ever written.
It would be like if I said “Citizen Kane is trash, only ignorant philistines like that movie” - it’s a very strong argument with no explanation, and whose dismissiveness and ignorance is self-evident. I don’t have to explain why the movie is good to criticize that comment.
- Colson Whitehead brought out a novel about this, The Nickel Boys. It is short, harrowing, and worth reading.
