The thing about The Nickel Boys that the reader cannot be allowed to forget is that while this book is technically a work of fiction, the school it is based on was absolutely real. Forensic archaeologists are still unearthing unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a segregated reform school in Florida. Colson Whitehead fictionalizes true stories and that makes them no easier to take. This book centers on the Nickel Academy, the unfortunate reform school to which young […]

This is the follow up novel to the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning The Undergroud Railroad. The novel takes place primarily onsite of a boys juvenile detention center in Florida. The novel begins with the unearthing of a collective grave by a team of anthropological students called in after remains were found in an environmental study before a new construction project. The resulting media coverage makes its way across the country and the various surviving men react in different ways. The narrative settles […]