calherewecome

The latest book that I just finished was “The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead, This is the fictional story of two black boys sentenced to a hellish juvenile reform school called “The Nickel Academy” near Tallahassee, Florida. The author says it’s fictional but it sure felt like the real thing.

The book is set in the 1950’s to early 1960’s, when race relations were just starting to change,

If a boy were to die while incarcerated, the body would be unceremoniously buried in an unmarked grave behind the school. No one either in government or the public seemed to care or even know about the place.

All it took was a seemingly minor mistake and one would be convicted to the reform school during the Jim Crow era in the south.

I could hardly put the book down. The follows Elwood and Turner through their life at the “Nickel” where one could be put into a hot, solitary confinement for any minor infraction.

There was a building for the black boys and one for the whites, but one gets the impression the black boys had it much worse.

Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize for his previous book “Underground Railroad“. I will get to that book when I get through by backlog of other books to read.

I’ve got to stop watching late-night television. Invariably, there is someone pitching there new book that they would like you to buy and read. And usually, I add the books to my Kindle reading list.

Other books that I am working on are “Home (Portal Series Book 3) by Richard Bowker. (Shameless Plug: Rich is my brother, and he would love to have you reading his books that are available on Amazon, either paperback or kindle.)

And finally, the other book that I am working on is “The Inn” by James Patterson. Book about an ex-cop living in Gloucester, MA.

This entry was posted on September 11, 2019 at 7:39 pm and is filed under Books, Reviews. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: books, Nickel-Boys, Whitehead