Lake Success
Gary Shteyngart, 2018
Random House
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812997415
Summary
The bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story returns with a biting, brilliant, emotionally resonant novel very much of our times.
Narcissistic, hilariously self-deluded, and divorced from the real world as most of us know it, hedge-fund manager Barry Cohen oversees $2.4 billion in assets.
Deeply stressed by an SEC investigation and by his three-year-old son’s diagnosis of autism, he flees New York on a Greyhound bus in search of a simpler, more romantic life with his old college sweetheart.
Meanwhile, his super-smart wife, Seema—a driven first-generation American who craved the picture-perfect life that comes with wealth—has her own demons to face.
How these two flawed characters navigate the Shteyngartian chaos of their own making is at the heart of this piercing exploration of the 0.1 Percent, a poignant tale of familial longing and an unsentimental ode to what really makes America great. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 5, 1972
• Where—Leningrad, USSR
• Education—B.A., Oberlin College (Ohio); M.F.A., Hunter College (NYC)
• Awards—Stephen Crane Award; National Jewish Book Award
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Gary Shteyngart (born Igor Semyonovich Shteyngart) is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR. Much of his work is satirical and relies on the invention of elaborately fictitious yet somehow familiar places and times.
Background
Shteyngart spent the first seven years of his childhood living in a square dominated by a huge statue of Vladimir Lenin in what is now St. Petersburg, Russia; (he alternately calls it "St. Leningrad" or "St. Leninsburg"). He comes from a Jewish family and describes his family as typically Soviet. His father worked as an engineer in a LOMO camera factory; his mother was a pianist.
In 1979 when Gary was 7, the Shteyngart family immigrated to the United States, where he was brought up with no television in his family's New York City apartment and where English was not the household language. He did not shed his thick Russian accent until the age of 14.
Later Shteyngart traveled to Prague, an experience that inspired his first novel, set in the fictitious European city of Prava. He is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York City; Oberlin College in Ohio, where he earned a degree in politics; and Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he earned an MFA in Creative Writing.
Writing career
Shteyngart took a trip to Prague which inspired his first novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook (2002), which is set in the fictitious European city of Prava. He has published two more novels: Absurdistan (2006) and Super Sad True Love Story (2010). His fourth book, Little Failure (2014), is a memoir recounting his family's emigration to the U.S. in 1979.
His other writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Slate, Granta, Travel and Leisure, and The New York Times.
Shteyngart's work has received numerous awards. The Russian Debutante's Handbook won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, the Book-of-the-Month Club First Fiction Award and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and one of the best debuts of the year by The Guardian. In 2002, he was named one of the five best new writers by Shout NY Magazine. Absurdistan was chosen as one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times Book Revieww and Time magazine, as well as a book of the year by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications. In June 2010, Shteyngart was named as one of The New Yorker magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers. Super Sad True Love Story won the 2011 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic literature.
Personal
Shteyngart now lives in New York City. He has taught writing at Hunter College, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University. During the Fall of 2007, he also had a fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany.
Shteyngart is married to Esther Won who is of Korean descent. In October 2013, they became parents to Johnny Won Shteyngart. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/14/2014.)
Book Reviews
Shteyngart, perhaps more than any American writer of his generation…is a natural. He is light, stinging, insolent and melancholy, to borrow the words the critic Kenneth Tynan kept on his writing desk to remind himself how to sound. The wit and the immigrant's sense of heartbreak…just seem to pour from him. The idea of riding along behind Shteyngart as he glides across America in the early age of Trump is a propitious one. He doesn't disappoint.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
[P]ungent…frisky and so intent on probing the dissonances …that grip this strange land getting stranger.… In Lake Success, Gary Shteyngart holds his adopted country up to the light, turns it, squints, turns it some more, and finds himself grimacing and laughing in almost equal measure.
Jonathan Miles - New York Times Book Review
[F]unny yet resoundingly mournful.…Shteyngart does slapstick as well as ever, but he stakes out new terrain in the expert way he develops his characters’ pathos…. There are some rough edges …but this is nevertheless a stylish, big-hearted novel.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Shteyngart’s latest is a hilarious, melancholic, and rapier-sharp tale for our times.
Library Journal
(Starred review) For all his caustic critique and propulsive plotting, Shteyngart is a writer of empathic imagination, ultimately steering this bristling, provocative, sharply comedic, yet richly compassionate novel toward enlightenment and redemption. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
(Starred review) As good as anything we’ve seen from this author: smart, relevant, fundamentally warm-hearted, hilarious of course, and it has a great ending.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for LAKE SUCCESS … then take off on your own:
1. In what way does Gary Shteyngart's Lake Success attempt to capture an era—our era—with its angst, class divisions, corruption, giddy optimism and bleak pessimism?
2. What do you think of Barry Cohen? In what way is he representative of our era? Barry is rife with contradictions: he is both greedy and generous, gregarious and introverted, confident and needy, a creature of Wall Street and a drifter. How do you seem him—is he on one side of these qualities or the other? Or can a person be both? Do you have sympathy for Barry? At first? Later in the novel? Or never?
3. Follow-up to Question 2: Speaking of contradictions, how does Barry's belief in his own generous nature rub up against his political beliefs?
4. Describe Seema. Do you find her a sympathetic character? What does she mean about feeling "guilty in front of all the people who would never know the fruits of the global order"?
5. Seema accuses Barry of lacking a soul. Is she right?
6. How does their child's autism diagnosis affect Barry and Seema? How do they cope, or not cope? What insights do we gain into the struggle of raising a beloved child with special needs?
7. Is Barry running from something … or running toward something? Does he know which?
8. What makes Barry, well… Barry? What do we come to learn about his past that has shaped his adult self?
9. Is there redemption for Barry? For Seema? Do you root for either one or both?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Evvie Drake Starts Over
Linda Holmes, 2019
Random House
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525619246
Summary
From the host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast comes a heartfelt debut about the unlikely relationship between a young woman who’s lost her husband and a major league pitcher who’s lost his game.
In a sleepy seaside town in Maine, recently widowed Eveleth "Evvie” Drake rarely leaves her large, painfully empty house nearly a year after her husband’s death in a car crash.
Everyone in town, even her best friend, Andy, thinks grief keeps her locked inside, and Evvie doesn’t correct them.
Meanwhile, in New York City, Dean Tenney, former Major League pitcher and Andy’s childhood best friend, is wrestling with what miserable athletes living out their worst nightmares call the "yips”: he can’t throw straight anymore, and, even worse, he can’t figure out why.
As the media storm heats up, an invitation from Andy to stay in Maine seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button on Dean’s future.
When he moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie’s house, the two make a deal: Dean won’t ask about Evvie’s late husband, and Evvie won’t ask about Dean’s baseball career.
Rules, though, have a funny way of being broken—and what starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more.
To move forward, Evvie and Dean will have to reckon with their pasts—the friendships they’ve damaged, the secrets they’ve kept—but in life, as in baseball, there’s always a chance—up until the last out.
A joyful, hilarious, and hope-filled debut, Evvie Drake Starts Over will have you cheering for the two most unlikely comebacks of the year—and will leave you wanting more from Linda Holmes. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1970-71
• Raised—Wilmington, Delaware, USA
• Education—B.A., Oberlin College; J.D., Lewis and Clark Law School
• Currently—lives in Washington, D.C.
Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for National Public Radio and the host of the podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which has held sold-out live shows in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, and elsewhere.
She appears regularly on NPR’s radio shows, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. Before NPR, she wrote for New York magazine online and for TV Guide, as well as for the influential website Television Without Pity. In her free time, she watches far too many romantic comedies, bakes bread, watches her nephews get taller, and recently knitted her first hat. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Holmes’s debut charms, as a young widow and a former Major League pitcher learn to begin again.… Believable, flawed characters are at the heart of this novel. At times deeply emotional yet sometimes extremely humorous, this is a satisfying crowd-pleaser.
Publishers Weekly
Though one could make the case for this being a romance—and plenty of romance readers will enjoy it—there's a stronger focus on the characters' individual arcs than on them as a couple. Holmes's debut is charming, funny, and warmhearted.
Library Journal
(Starred review) The charm of Holmes’ novel comes not only from a genuine friendship between Evvie and Dean… but also from watching amiable Evvie stumble through the process of finding herself in a realistic way. A warm and funny book that will utterly captivate.
Booklist
(Starred review) [H]ilarious dialogue, making… conversations a joy to read. Refreshingly, … [a]lthough their romance is often front and center, there are many other emotionally affecting storylines.
Kirkus Reviews
(Starred review) [H]eartwarming rom-com about loss, grief and second chances…. Despite the kernel of sadness rooted at the novel’s core, Evvie Drake Starts Over is a feel-good read that radiates warmth. Holmes nails the balance between romance and humor.
BookPage
(Starred review) [S]mart… ripe with amusing wit and charm…. [Holmes] skillfully explores regret and longing, friendship, love and forgiveness and the challenges posed by reinvention. Strong characterizations and… filled with clever banter.
Shelf Awareness
Discussion Questions
1. Small towns like Calcasset, Maine, can be wonderful—Evvie has a strong support network, community traditions, stability—but there can also be downsides. After her husband’s death, Evvie keeps secret her previous plans to leave him. Why do you think she does this? Have you ever found it difficult to voice an ugly truth?
2. What does Dean’s unexpected and inexplicable inability to pitch a baseball mean to you? Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you haven’t been able to perform as you would like to?
3. Evvie and Dean are both thrown huge curve balls—Evvie loses her husband, Dean his livelihood. Do you think they handle the changes in their lives well?
4. Andy and Evvie are close friends with no romantic interest in each other—but things get complicated when Andy starts dating Monica. Have you ever had to balance a relationship and a close friendship?
5. Do you think that balance is further complicated if that friend is a member of the opposite sex? Is this an experience you can relate to?
6. As Evvie and Dean become closer, Evvie reveals more about her marriage. What does she come to understand about her marriage to Tim by the end of the book, and how does this new understanding change her?
7. Evvie finds it difficult to rely on others or to ask for help. Can you relate? Do you find it hard to depend on other people for emotional or practical support?
8. Why does Evvie decide to take a break from speaking to her mother? Do you think she makes the right decision?
9. Evvie, Andy, and Dean are all struggling with different forms of grief. What is each character grieving and how do they find ways to heal?
10. Why do you think Evvie puts off contacting Nona about her job proposition? Why do you think she finally does call Nona back? Have you ever put off an opportunity? What made you finally take the plunge?
11. Do you think Evvie successfully "starts over” by the end of the novel? How does she change from the beginning to the end of the book?
12. What actors would you cast in a film version of Evvie Drake Starts Over?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Misfortune of Marion Palm
Emily Culliton, 2017
Knopf Doubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524731908
Summary
A wildly entertaining debut about a Brooklyn Heights wife and mother who has embezzled a small fortune from her children's private school and makes a run for it, leaving behind her trust fund poet husband, his maybe-secret lover, her two daughters, and a school board who will do anything to find her.
Marion Palm prefers not to think of herself as a thief but rather "a woman who embezzles."
Over the years she has managed to steal $180,000 from her daughters' private school, money that has paid for European vacations, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, and perpetually unused state-of-the-art exercise equipment.
But, now, when the school faces an audit, Marion pulls piles of rubber-banded cash from their basement hiding places and flees, leaving her family to grapple with the baffled detectives, the irate school board, and the mother-shaped hole in their house.
Told from the points of view of Nathan, Marion's husband, heir to a long-diminished family fortune; Ginny, Marion's teenage daughter who falls helplessly in love at the slightest provocation; Jane, Marion's youngest who is obsessed with a missing person of her own; and Marion herself, on the lam—and hiding in plain sight.
(From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Emily Culliton is a PhD candidate at the University of Denver for fiction and earned her MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was born and raised in Brooklyn. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Half of the delight in Emily Culliton's wholly delightful debut novel…lies in the way the book, like its title character, defies expectations at every turn…A theft, a fugitive: The plot, taken together with the novel's short, immersive chapters and the escalating risks that confront Marion and her family, locates The Misfortune of Marion Palm somewhere on the thriller continuum. It would make good airplane reading—or motel reading, for readers who link Marion's name and her swag to Psycho. But the book is also sunnier than that suggests, part satire and part Odyssey into the humbler precincts of Brooklyn…And through it all we get the spunky, homely, larcenous Marion, who in her temperament if not her background is like a…cousin to Bernadette Fox, the exasperated Seattle housewife of Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette, who also ditches her family. All of this makes for a witty, sneakily feminist kind of crime story.
Gregory Cowles - New York Times Book Review
Talk about getting away from it all. Marion Palm has pocketed $180,000 from her daughters' school coffers and gone on the lam, no disguise necessary. 'A homely woman,' she thinks to herself, 'is an invisible thing.' But what is her plan, and is she ever coming back? A whip-smart, thoroughly original debut (A Summer's Best Books).
People
(Starred review.) Culliton’s wonderful and sharp debut novel invites readers into the mind and motivations of an unlikable and remarkable woman.… Culliton’s prose is effortless and wickedly clever; its ability to condone and condemn in the most succinct way is a testament to the author’s storytelling and characterization skills.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) This debut novel has what many others lack: a wicked sense of humor. Verdict: With her mordant wit, deft plotting, and clever storytelling, Culliton is a young novelist to watch. —Leslie Patterson
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Oddly comic—think Miranda July—writing.… Culliton's assured and clever novel reads more like that of a seasoned novelist than a debut.… Readers who have wished the narration of The Royal Tenenbaums was an actual book need look no further than The Misfortune of Marion Palm. —Kathy Sexton
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. Why does Marion prefer to think of herself as a "woman who embezzles," rather than as an embezzler? What motivates Marion to embezzle? How does she justify her behavior? Would you characterize Marion’s embezzlement as a feminist act? Why or why not? To what extent does Marion relate to the other women embezzlers whom she reads about online? How are their experiences similar to or different from her own?
2. Discuss the theme of marital discord in The Misfortune of Marion Palm. How would you characterize Marion and Nathan’s courtship? When did the rift between them first begin to form? As you answer this question, consider their different backgrounds, their finances, their distribution of labor, and their approaches to parenthood.
3. Examine Marion’s adolescence and early adulthood. How would you describe her relationship with her mother? In what ways might this relationship have influenced her own feelings about motherhood? How would you characterize Marion’s experience at the cafe in SoHo where she worked in her early twenties? To what extent was this first job a formative experience?
4. Explore Ginny’s response to her mother’s departure. What frustrates her the most about how the adults around her respond to her mother’s disappearance? What is she hoping to get out of new friendships with older students? Why do you think Ginny "falls in love" with various boys over the course of the novel? In what ways are these responses a reflection of her age?
5. Discuss Jane’s fascination with the missing boy. Why do you think she starts to pretend they are spending time together? How does she respond to the news of his death? How might her fascination with his disappearance be connected to her confusion about her mother’s disappearance?
6. Examine the novel’s depiction of the different neighborhoods in Brooklyn. What does Carroll Gardens represent to Marion? What does Brighton Beach represent to her? Why does she decide to remain in Brooklyn after leaving her family, even though she knows she might be discovered? As you answer this question, consider how James Agee’s epigraph relates to the novel.
7. How would you characterize the administration and board of trustees at the school? Why do the members of the board remain nameless? To what extent does this characterization serve to satirize elite private schools — and, more generally, bureaucracy?
8. Explore the motif of secrecy in the novel. What kinds of secrets are depicted in the novel? Who keeps them? What are the consequences of the various characters’ secrets? Is secrecy ever defensible? Why or why not?
9. Examine the dynamic between Marion and Sveyta. Why does Marion accept the cleaning job that Sveyta offers her, despite the paltry pay? What are Marion’s hopes for her relationship with Sveyta? Why is she so fixated on going to the ballet with her?
10. Explore how Nathan adapts to life without Marion. How does his wife’s departure affect his approach to fatherhood? Why does he avoid leaving the house? Why do you think he feels more fulfilled blogging about his life than he did writing poetry?
11. Consider Nathan and Denise’s affair. What does Nathan hope to get out of the affair? What does Denise hope to get? Why does Denise eventually decide to cut if off? How does Nathan respond to their "breakup"?
12. Discuss the theme of parenthood as it is depicted in the novel. What does it mean to be a good parent? A bad parent? What obstacles do the parents in the novel face as they try to be good parents? At what point does the dichotomy between "good" and "bad" begin to break down? When answering this question, consider Nathan and Marion, Anna and Tom, the mother of the missing boy, and the wealthy Russian couple.
13. Explore the character of the detective. What is his personal life like? Why do you believe he remains unnamed? What motivates him to continue looking for Marion? When he finally speaks to her, why does he decide to inform Nathan that Marion is safe, without disclosing her whereabouts?
14. Discuss the conclusion of the novel. Is this the ending you were expecting? Do you believe that Marion will encounter more misfortune in Russia? Was Marion ever truly misfortunate? Why or why not?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
She Would Be King
Wayetu Moore, 2018
Graywolf Press
312 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781555978174
Summary
A novel of exhilarating range, magical realism, and history—a dazzling retelling of Liberia’s formation
Wayetu Moore’s powerful debut novel, She Would Be King, reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond.
♦ Gbessa—exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives.
♦ June Dey—raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee.
♦ Norman Aragon—the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him.
When the three meet in the settlement of Monrovia, their gifts help them salvage the tense relationship between the African American settlers and the indigenous tribes, as a new nation forms around them.
Moore’s intermingling of history and magical realism finds voice not just in these three characters but also in the fleeting spirit of the wind, who embodies an ancient wisdom. "If she was not a woman," the wind says of Gbessa, "she would be king."
In this vibrant story of the African diaspora, Moore, a talented storyteller and a daring writer, illuminates with radiant and exacting prose the tumultuous roots of a country inextricably bound to the United States.
She Would Be King is a novel of profound depth set against a vast canvas and a transcendent debut from a major new author. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1984-85
• Where—Liberia
• Raised—Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., Howard University; M.A., University of Southern California
• Currently—lives in Brookly, New York City, New York
Wayetu Moore is the director of One Moore Book, a nonprofit group that encourages reading for children in countries with low-literacy rates. Her debut novel, She Would Be King, was published in 2018. A memoir is also forthcoming.
Moore was born in Liberia but left when she was only five to escape the country's civil war. She moved to New York City and lived in her mother's dorm room at Columbia University where her mother was finishing up her degree. Three years later, the family settled in Texas, which Moore now calls home.
The author earned her B.A. from Howard University and her M.A. from Southern California University. She is currently working toward a second Master's at Columbia Teacher's College where she is studying the impact of culturally relevant curricula and teaching aids on under-served elementary school children.
Moore has written for Guernica Magazine, Rumpus, Atlantic Monthly and other publications. She has been featured in The Economist, NPR, NBC, BET and ABC, among others, for her work in advocacy for diversity in children’s literature. (Adapted from various online sources. Retrieved 9/14/2018).
Read an author interview here.
Book Reviews
Moore's vivid characters, beguiling language and powerful subject matter engage us thoroughly. The book is unforgettable.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
This compelling debut novel by Wayetu Moore blends historical fiction with magical realism in an exhilarating tale of the formation of Liberia. Moore effortlessly weaves the threads of indigenous West African tribes, American and Caribbean slavery, and British colonialism together to tell the creation story of a new nation, complete with unforgettable characters and a dynamic voice.
Marie Claire
Hotly anticipated.… A breathtaking retelling of the founding of Liberia.… Wayetu Moore’s magical realism can make anyone believe in how connected humans are to the world around them.
Glamour
Stunning.… It is an epic narrative, weaving together themes of diasporic conflict, the legacy of bondage, isolation, and community, and it offers a transcendent, important look at the ways in which the past is never fully behind us, and instead echoes throughout everything we do.
NYLON
[An] impressive fantasy that revolves around three indelible characters.… Moore uses an accomplished, penetrating style—with clever swerves into fantasy—to build effective critiques of tribal misogyny, colonial abuse, and racism.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Many books are devoted to connecting Africans of the diaspora, yet… Moore's debut does so with remarkable …spiritual, and mystical dimensions.… [P]oetic dialog… [allows] readers to imagine events, sights, feelings, and sensations. —Ashanti White, Fayetteville, NC
Library Journal
Moore’s insightful, emotional descriptions graft these stories right onto readers’ hearts.
BookPage
An ambitious, genre-hopping, continent-spanning novel.… Moore is a brisk and skilled storyteller who weaves her protagonists' disparate stories together with aplomb yet… [renders her] cast of characters in ways that feel psychologically compelling.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for SHE WOULD BE KING … then take off on your own:
1. Of the three main characters, do you have a favorite—one you admire more than the others or find more sympathetic? Talk about the way all three empower themselves. Overall, what does this book have to say about self-empowerment and the human spirit?
2. Wayetu Moore makes use of magical realism in her telling of Liberia's history. What does that fantastical approach—superpowers for her three main characters and the wind as narrator—bring to her story?
3. Do you consider the powers given to Gbessa, June Dey, and Norman Aragon as gifts …or curses …or both?
4. Talk about the way in which the novel deals with slave trade, especially the atrocities at the hands of the French. Were you aware of this part of history?
5. Discuss the racism toward native Liberians which arose during the country's formation. Was it inadvertent? Was it unavoidable—simply part and parcel to our basic human nature? Or was the racism a result of something else entirely?
6. One of the questions posed by She Would Be King is the degree to which past events are responsible for our actions in the present. Can the evil things that were done to us—cruelty and injustice we were once subjected to—explain, even excuse, our present deeds?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead, 2019
Knopf Doubleday
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385537070
Summary
Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone."
Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future.
Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides "physical, intellectual and moral training" so the delinquent boys in their charge can become "honorable and honest men."
In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back."
Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King's ringing assertion "Throw us in jail and we will still love you." His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble.
The tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys' fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.
Based on the real story of a reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 6, 1969
• Where—New York City, New York (USA)
• Education—B.A., Harvard University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize; National Book Award; Whiting Award
• Currently—ives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Colson Whitehead is a New York-based novelist and nonfiction works. He was born and raised in New York City, attending attending Trinity, a private prep school, in Manhattan. He graduated from Harvard College in 1991.
Books
After leaving college, Whitehead wrote for The Village Voice and while there began working on his novels. His first, The Institutionalist, published in 1999, concerned intrigue in the Department of Elevator Inspectors, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and a winner of the Quality Paperback Book Club's New Voices Award.
Next came John Henry Days in 2001. The novel is an investigation of the steel-driving man of American folklore. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. The novel received the Young Lions Fiction Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.
The Colossus of New York followed in 2003. A book of essays about the city, it is a meditation on life in Manhattan in the style of E.B. White's well-known essay "Here Is New York." Colossus became a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Apex Hides the Hurt, released in 2006, centers around a fictional "nomenclature consultant" who gets an assignment to name a town. The book earned Whitehead the PEN/Oakland Award.
Sag Harbor, set in 1985, follows a group of teenagers whose families (like Whitehead's own) spend the summer in Sag Harbor, Long Island. Published in 2009, the novel was a finalist for both the PEN/Faulkner award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. In 2010 came Zone One, a post-apocalyptic story set New York City.
In 2014 Whitehead published his second work of nonfiction, this one about the 2011 World Series of Poker—The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky & Death. Two years later, in 2016, his novel The Underground Railroad, was released. Widely acclaimed, many critics agree that it is destined to become an American masterpiece.
In addition to his books, Whitehead's reviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Harper's and Granta, and others.
Teaching and writing
He has taught at Princeton University, New York University, the University of Houston, Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Wesleyan University, and been a Writer-in-Residence at Vassar College, the University of Richmond, and the University of Wyoming.
In the spring of 2015, he joined The New York Times Magazine to write a column on language.
Honors
He has received a MacArthur Fellowship, A Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Dos Passos Prize, and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. (Adapted from the author's website and Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/6/2016.)
Book Reviews
The Nickel Boys demonstrate the versatile gifts of a writer who is rounding into mastery. The impression left is that Mr. Whitehead can succeed at any kind of book he takes on. He has made himself one of the finest novelists in America.
Wall Street Journal
Whitehead's new novel… is in many ways a continuation of his reassessment of African American history. But The Nickel Boys is no mere sequel.… it's a surprisingly different kind of novel.… Whitehead reveals the clandestine atrocities of Nickel Academy with just enough restraint to keep us in a state of wincing dread.… It shreds our easy confidence in the triumph of goodness and leaves in its place a hard and bitter truth about the ongoing American experiment.
Washington Post
Possibly the single most anticipated novel of the year.
Los Angeles Times
This is a powerful book by one of America's great writers.… Without sentimentality, in as intense and finely crafted a book as you'll ever read, Whitehead tells a story of American history that won’t allow you to see the country in the same way again.
Toronto Star
The Nickel Boys is straight-ahead realism, distinguished by its clarity and its open conversation with other black writers: It quotes from or evokes the work of Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and more. Whitehead has made an overt bid to stand in their company—to write a novel that’s memorable, and teachable, for years to come. The Nickel Boys is its fulfilment.
USA Today
[A] stunning new novel.… The understated beauty of his writing, combined with the disquieting subject matter, creates a kind of dissonance that chills the reader. Whitehead has long had a gift for crafting unforgettable characters, and Elwood proves to be one of his best.… The final pages of the book are a heartbreaking distillation of the story that preceded them; it's a perfect ending to a perfect novel.
NPR
Again [Whitehead is] wrestling with American history's reverberations…. Since its moral concern is multigenerational anguish, the sense of mourning in The Nickel Boys is subvisceral—not detached, but restrained.… We are called to remember [Faulkner], "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
Oprah Magazine
[The Nickel Boys] should further cement Whitehead as one of his generation's best.
Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review) Inspired by horrific events that transpired at the real-life Dozier School for Boys, Whitehead’s brilliant examination of America’s history of violence is a stunning novel of impeccable language and startling insight.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Whitehead's magnetic characters exemplify stoicism and courage, and each supremely crafted scene smolders and flares with injustice and resistance, building to a staggering revelation.… A scorching work.
Booklist
(Starred review) Whitehead's novel displays its author's facility with violent imagery and his skill at weaving narrative strands into an ingenious, if disquieting whole. There's something a tad more melodramatic…, giving it a drugstore-paperback glossiness that enhances its blunt-edged impact.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the prologue, the narrator observes that after the truth about Nickel Academy comes out, "even the most innocent scene—a mess hall or the football field—came out sinister, no photographic trickery necessary." Can you think of a time in your life when discovering the history of a place (a particular building, a statue, a historical landmark, etc.) dramatically changed your perception of it?
2. Elwood says that both he and Yolanda King "woke to the world," or discovered racism, at six years old. How old were you when you became aware of racism and inequality? How do you think this experience is different for different people?
3. While in the infirmary, Elwood reads a pamphlet about Nickel that details the contributions the school has made to the community, including bricks from the brick-making machine "propping up buildings all over Jackson County." What do you think of the ways that the wider community seemed to benefit from labor performed by Nickel students? Do you see any historical or modern-day parallels to this symbiotic relationship?
4. One student, Jaimie, is half-Mexican and constantly shuffled between the "white" and "colored" sections of Nickel Academy. Why do you think the author included a character with Jaimie’s ethnic identity in this story?
5. One of Elwood’s takeaways from Dr. King’s speeches is the importance of maintaining one’s dignity in the face of oppression. Is Elwood’s decision to escape (and risk the consequences of capture) rooted in the realization that he can no longer maintain his dignity in a place like Nickel?
6. At one point, the narrator writes that "laughter knocked out a few bricks from the wall of segregation, so tall and so wide." Does humor truly lighten the burden for the boys? Or is it merely one of the very few things that can’t be taken away from them?
7. Who do you think was the true "villain" of the story? The teachers? The school itself? Something or someone else?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)