Lit in Translation

The Nickel Boys

The Nickel Boys

Colson Whitehead (born 1969)

English editions

Written in English

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Elwood Curtis grows up poor and Black in segregated Tallahassee, Florida, studying encyclopedias, holding down an after-school job and playing a record of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches. On his way to his first college class he hitches a lift in a stolen car, and the judge sends him to the Nickel Academy, a reform school for boys. Behind its respectable front, the staff beat, abuse and exploit the inmates, and some boys vanish. Elwood thinks good behavior will see him through; his new friend Turner believes you must study people and steer around them. The clash between these outlooks ends in a choice whose consequences reach decades ahead. The school is modeled on a real institution that ran for more than a century.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form
Novel
Genres
Historical, Coming of age (assigned by AI)
Set in
United States, 1960s
First published
2019
Author's age
50 when first published
ISBN

9780385537070 (Doubleday, United States)

9780708899410 (Fleet, United Kingdom)

9780345804341 (Vintage, United States)

9780708899427 (Fleet, United Kingdom)

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Wikidata