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A review by sarahglen
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
5.0
Wowowow. Please, read it. This novel skewers reality the way it deserves, the way nonfiction can’t always accomplish. Complicity cuts to the bone.
I knew it would be great when this was on page one: “The discovery of the bodies was an expensive complication for the real estate company awaiting the all clear from the environmental study, and for the state’s attorney, which had recently closed an investigation into the abuse stories. Now they had to start a new inquiry, establish the identities of the deceased and the manner of death, and there was no telling when the whole damned place could be razed, cleared and neatly erased from history, which everyone agreed was long overdue.”
Whitehead's descriptions are great throughout. Here are a few highlights:
“They had managed to scrape up a life after leaving Nickel or had never fit in with normal people. The last smokers of cigarette brands you never see, late to the self-help regimens, always on the verge of disappearing. Dead in prison, or decomposing in rooms they rented by the week, frozen to death in the woods after drinking turpentine.”
“Over time Elwood saw that [Turner] was always simultaneously at home in whatever scene he found himself and also seemed like he shouldn’t have been there; inside and above at the same time; a part and apart. Like a tree trunk that falls across a creek — it doesn’t belong and then it’s never not been there, generating its own ripples in the larger current.”
Jaimie’s “ping-pong” storyline was perfection: “His constant form reassignments notwithstanding, Jaimie kept a quiet profile and conducted himself in accordance with the Nickel handbook’s rules of conduct — a miracle, since no one had ever seen the handbook despite its constant invocations by the staff. Like justice, it existed in theory.”
“He whistled a tune he remembered from when was a boy, a blues tune. He didn’t recall the words or whether it had been his father or mother who sang it, but he felt good whenever the song snuck up on him, a kind of coolness like the shadow of a cloud out of nowhere, something that broke off something bigger. Yours briefly before it sailed on its way.”
This plus his description of the marathon watchers captured NY in all its complexities for me: “This was Hamilton Heights now. The first time one of his dispatchers asked where Hamilton Heights was, he said ‘Tell them they’re moving to Harlem.’ But the name persisted and stuck. Real estate agents cooking up new names for old places, or resurrecting old names for old places, meant the neighborhood was turning over. Meant young, white people are moving back. He can cover office rent and payroll. You want to pay him to move you into Hamilton Heights or Lower Whoville or whatever they come up with, he’s glad to help, three-hour minimum.”
I knew it would be great when this was on page one: “The discovery of the bodies was an expensive complication for the real estate company awaiting the all clear from the environmental study, and for the state’s attorney, which had recently closed an investigation into the abuse stories. Now they had to start a new inquiry, establish the identities of the deceased and the manner of death, and there was no telling when the whole damned place could be razed, cleared and neatly erased from history, which everyone agreed was long overdue.”
Whitehead's descriptions are great throughout. Here are a few highlights:
“They had managed to scrape up a life after leaving Nickel or had never fit in with normal people. The last smokers of cigarette brands you never see, late to the self-help regimens, always on the verge of disappearing. Dead in prison, or decomposing in rooms they rented by the week, frozen to death in the woods after drinking turpentine.”
“Over time Elwood saw that [Turner] was always simultaneously at home in whatever scene he found himself and also seemed like he shouldn’t have been there; inside and above at the same time; a part and apart. Like a tree trunk that falls across a creek — it doesn’t belong and then it’s never not been there, generating its own ripples in the larger current.”
Jaimie’s “ping-pong” storyline was perfection: “His constant form reassignments notwithstanding, Jaimie kept a quiet profile and conducted himself in accordance with the Nickel handbook’s rules of conduct — a miracle, since no one had ever seen the handbook despite its constant invocations by the staff. Like justice, it existed in theory.”
“He whistled a tune he remembered from when was a boy, a blues tune. He didn’t recall the words or whether it had been his father or mother who sang it, but he felt good whenever the song snuck up on him, a kind of coolness like the shadow of a cloud out of nowhere, something that broke off something bigger. Yours briefly before it sailed on its way.”
This plus his description of the marathon watchers captured NY in all its complexities for me: “This was Hamilton Heights now. The first time one of his dispatchers asked where Hamilton Heights was, he said ‘Tell them they’re moving to Harlem.’ But the name persisted and stuck. Real estate agents cooking up new names for old places, or resurrecting old names for old places, meant the neighborhood was turning over. Meant young, white people are moving back. He can cover office rent and payroll. You want to pay him to move you into Hamilton Heights or Lower Whoville or whatever they come up with, he’s glad to help, three-hour minimum.”