The Nickel Boys

Colson Whitehead Press Reviews

Whitehead's most emotionally resonant novel to date . . . he allows us to feel, and to ache, too -- Clifford Thompson - Times Literary Supplement

Whitehead's brilliant examination of America's history of violence is a stunning novel of impeccable language and startling insight - Publishers Weekly

Not a moment is wasted, and for someone who writes as vividly as Whitehead, there's also a graceful economy here. He uses words carefully, as if he doesn't want them to get in the way of the truths he's excavating - Boston Globe

[The Nickel Boys] has the hot breath of a true story. It also has a beautiful, unforgettable young hero who walks right off the page into your heart . . . If you have been thinking you should read Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys is the perfect place to start - Newsweek

Haunting and haunted...devastating...The book feels like a mission, and it's an essential one...he pulls off a brilliant sleight of hand that elevates the mere act of resurrecting Elwood's buried story into at once a miracle and a tragedy -- Frank Rich - New York Times Book Review

The Nickel Boys is in conversation with works by James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and especially Martin Luther King.... 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 -- Ron Charles - The Washington Post

A tense, nervy performance, even more rigorously controlled than its predecessor. The narration is disciplined and the sentences plain and sturdy, oars cutting into the water. Every chapter hits its mark - New York Times

if there's a more powerful novel this year, I'd be very surprised - Reader's Digest

Searing . . . the story is masterfully told -- Duncan White - Telegraph

Colson Whitehead's book is not a polemic, but in presenting the unconscionable history of this particular institution, keeping boys in solitary confinement or even burying them out the back , he once again builds an allegorical history that resonates in the present -- Tim Adams - Observer

A masterful piece of very human storytelling -- Nikesh Shukla - i

A furious, compassionate novel whose final sleight of hand will twist deep in your gut -- Claire Allfree - Metro

Forceful and tightly wrought . . . Whitehead homes in on the way in which every action fits into a fully orchestrated whole, which is why I would wish everyone, black or white, to read this novel. He demonstrates to superb effect how racism in America has long operated as a codified and sanctioned activity intended to enrich one group at the expense of another -- Aminatta Forna - Guardian

There's hardly a spare word in this book . . . Whitehead has a talent for creating ambiguous, complex scenes that fix in your memory. The Nickel Boys feels like a necessary fictional project, writing the blank or buried pages of US history; and it's done with virtuosity - Evening Standard

If greatness is excellence sustained over time, then without question, Whitehead is one of the greatest of his generation. In fact, figuring his age, acclaim, productivity and consistency, he is one of the greatest American writers alive - Time

[Whitehead] has produced yet another modern classic . . . He's also adept at creating characters of unforgettable flesh-and-blood immediacy, with even the swiftest pen portrait conveying the full weight of a lived history. Quietly and purposefully heartbreaking in its portrayal of the lifelong legacy of abuse, it is quite outstanding -- Stephanie Cross - Daily Mail

From the award-winning author of The Underground Railroad comes another searing novel exploring America's racially troubled past . . . a real page-turner -- Max Davidson - Mail on Sunday

A commanding triumph . . . brilliant and furious . . . a lean, commanding page turner that provides the richest fictional experience of 2019 so far . . . the prose is so loaded with quicksilver wit, it holds you in its thrall. It is a novel that not only succeeds in character, plot and moral argument but lends grace to lives all too easily shattered . . . The compressed fury of Whitehead's writing is what propels the novel forward - he is one of only a handful of writers who is so brilliant you just want to feed him stories. He has a distinctive voice, at once cynical and compassionate, and his wry observations cut to the quick in ways that make other novelists look prissy or too anxious to please. There is barely a paragraph of The Nickel Boys without some felicitous touch -- Johanna Thomas-Corr - Sunday Times