2019Pulitzer 2020
The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead · b. 1969 · United States
Why it matters
Two Black boys endure a brutal Jim Crow-era Florida reform school based on a real institution whose horrors were only recently exhumed. Whitehead's second consecutive Pulitzer winner, spare where The Underground Railroad was expansive.
At a glance
historical fictiontragedy
Difficulty 4/10medium pace213 pagesRestrained, controlled prose despite the harrowing material.
Deep dive
Two friends at a brutal 1960s reform school stake out opposite answers to the same question — does nonviolent idealism actually survive an institution built to punish it — and Whitehead spends fifty years finding out which one was right.
Where to go next
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Percival Everett · 2001ErasureLvl 6Fast paced