-Welcome to the show. -Thanks for having me.
Um, you have written yet another book,
and this book, many are saying once again,
is one of the most painful examinations
of a true story
illustrated and told in a fictitious way.
The Nickel Boys is based on
what some call the rehabilitory school.
Some people just call it a torture facility.
It was the Dozier School.
Why did you choose to tell the story the way you did?
'Cause you have such a specific way of telling the story.
Yeah, it was based on-on the Dozier School,
which was a reform school in Florida.
Operated for 110 years.
And the idea was very lofty.
You know, instead of locking up kids with grown-up offenders,
what if we give them teaching, school one day
and-and work the next?
They'll come out and be rehabilitated.
Um, but immediately, you know,
three years into it being opened,
there were sto... There were kids as young as six
being shackled, put in solitary confinement.
Every 15 years, there'd be an exposé
and talk of reform, and nothing happened
until it finally closed in 2011.
And I-I was shocked when it hit the national media.
They found unmarked graves.
Um, 65 unmarked graves,
and, uh, they tried to reconstruct what happened.
And it had been covered a lot in Florida
-but not so much national media. -Right.
And I felt that, um...
uh, if there's one place like this,
how many other stories are we not hearing about?
-And... -It's interesting. Yeah.
And it's interesting that they-they...
You know, the idea of the school
seems like a great idea, you know.
People go... As you said, it's a lofty ambition.
We-We're gonna go with reform.
Let's not lock the kids up.
Let's not put them in jail. Let's find a different way.
But for all intents and purposes,
this was almost worse than a prison.
Well, yeah. There's a lot of physical abuse, sexual abuse.
In the unmarked graves, they dug up the bodies
and found kids with, uh, shotgun pellets
in their skeletons.
Blunt force trauma to their skulls.
And, so, um, you know, usually, we have... we have great ideas,
and when people get involved, they-they turn to crap,
-unfortunately, so... -Right.
You-you write the book from an interesting perspective,
because it's based on this... on this school,
but you're telling it through a very personal lens.
There are two characters in the book
who we're following the story through,
and both of them are at the school,
but both of them see the school through very different lenses.
One sees the school as, like, a, "Oh, this is not going well,
"but, you know, it's not the... it's not the world
or it's not America as it's supposed to be."
And another goes, "No,
this is exactly what America's all about."
Why did you choose to tell the story in that way?
I could have set it in, uh... in '85
and in-in 1924.
I picked 1963, 'cause it's the height
-of the civil rights movement. -Right.
And Elwood, our-our positive character,
optimistic character, has seen advances
in terms of social order and-and justice.
Uh, but it's also the height of segregation--
Jim Crow laws that restricted black life
and movement in America.
And so we had these two warring, um, ideas
-of progressivism and-and entrenched injustice. -Right.
And so Elwood, um, thinks he can change the world.
He's been inspired by Martin Luther King
and the marches he's seen in his lifetime.
-Mm-hmm. -And then there's Turner, who's an orphan
and who's always lived by his wits
and doesn't think that people change or systems change.
-Right. -I think, you know, it-it--
I think they represent parts of me.
I have an optimistic side and a pessimistic side,
and they're often at war with each other.
And I think it's a fundamental, sort of,
philosophical disagreement we all have.
When-when you write books like this,
do you ever find yourself changing your mind
as you're writing the book?
Because although you're creating the story,
I mean, th-there must be a part of you,
as a-- as a storyteller and as a story consumer,
that is also falling into the story.
Like, do you write the book and then go,
"Oh, I don't have hope for America,"
and then write another page and go,
-"No, I'm very hopeful for..." -No.
Sure. Well, you have to get in the character,
defending who's, uh, you know,
-taken-taken command of the story. -Yes. Right.
So, some days, I'm Elwood. Some days, I'm Turner
and going back and forth.
Um, and sometimes I'm in my character, sometimes not.
Uh, Cora, the main character of The Underground Railroad,
has the least amount of me in her,
-which is probably why it's my most popular book. -Mm-hmm.
-(laughs) -But in terms of, uh...
But with this book, uh,
you know, I sort of have my Turner days and Elwood days.
If-if someone's reading this book,
I mean, you know, for-- I-I won't lie--
like, when I-- when I was reading parts of it, I-I--
you want to put it down and-and--
but you don't want to put it down.
You want to put it down because of how it makes you feel,
but then you want to keep reading it
because the story's so engaging
and it's gripping and, you know, you don't want to look away.
It-it feels like you're not afraid
to write stories like this. You know?
Some would say that you're exposing the ugla--
ugly underbelly of America.
W-Would you say you're doing it for that reason?
Or are you just telling stories to try and get people
to think about their world differently?
I would try to-- you know, to write projects,
uh, that, uh, is appropriate for me, like this year.
And I've written books that have a lot of jokes
and books that h-have no jokes.
Um, I've written two serious books in a row,
one about slavery and this one about the reform school.
And if you're gonna tell the story right,
-you have to be all in. And so it's brutal. -Right.
Um, slavery was brutal.
It's not like I'm writing Gone with the Wind,
where a white lady's being self-actualized
against the backdrop of slavery,
and it's like, "Oh, they're trying to burn my house down."
It's like, "They should burn your (bleep) house down.
-You're a (bleep) slaver." Um... -(laughing)
(cheering and applause)
And then, uh, with The Nickel Boys,
you know, it's based on a true story, and I want to, you know--
If I can get ten percent of what actually happened
-to the kids there, I've done my job. -Mm-hmm.
-And, um, so you're all in. -You do--
you do a lot of research for these books,
but you chose not to go to the school
to do your research. Why?
Yeah, I mean, uh, the more research I can do
from my home, on my computer and archives, the happier I am.
You know, when you leave the house, uh, there's so many--
what's the word?-- people,
-(laughter) -and if I can avoid human interaction,
it's usually a win.
Um, but you do have to go into the field sometimes
-to get your-your real writer badge. -Right.
In the case of-of this book,
um, I meant to go to Florida and visit the school,
and, uh, I kept putting it off,
and I was halfway through the book, and I figured,
"Oh, next month and next month."
And then I realized that whenever I thought
about going down there, I'd get this sort of sick feeling
-and this really heavy feeling. -Right.
You know, I was so invested in Elwood and Turner's story
and the stories of, um, the kids who'd been to school,
uh, that I realized at some point
that, um, I would only go down there
with, like, a bulldoze and a...
-bulldozer and a stick of dynamite... -Mm-hmm.
to destroy it, you know, as a place of evil.
Um, a year and a half ago,
uh, Hurricane Michael actually
destroyed a lot of the buildings.
And if you see it now,
all those structures are sort of crumbling,
and that sort of inner rot is now written on its outer face.
-Um, and so... -Wow.
Um, Mother Nature took over for justice.
If-if someone... if someone looks at this book and goes,
"Colson, I love your writing,
"but I-I don't know if I want to read a book
that-that's about a story that is this painful"
why would you say reading this book would be different
to just reading the story
of what actually happened in real life?
Yeah, I mean, uh, it's not non-fiction.
And, uh, I took the facts of the school and...
and put my own characters in there.
Um, and like I said, it's a brut... it's a brutal story,
but it's also about, uh, a journey into selfhood.
Uh, two thirds of the book takes place in the... in the school,
and a third follows Elwood, the main character, as he comes
-to New York and-and makes a life for himself. -Mm-hmm.
He's overcoming trauma, this catastrophic event.
And... and that's a really important part of the story--
his journey into making a coherent self,
or coming back from, um, this terrible incident.
And if you don't want to read it,
you know, there are bookstores, and you can buy, like,
a book about a magical puppy
who gets lost and has to find his way home, so...
-(applause) -Just you know?
Or you can read both.
You can read the puppy one, and then you can read this,
but I would recommend highly that everyone read this one,
because you won't learn much about the puppies.
-Thank you so much for joining us on the show. -No, thank you.
-Sure, sure. -Phenomenal story, phenomenal writer.
Really appreciate it.
The Nickel Boys is available now--
a powerful story by an amazing writer.
Colson Whitehead, everybody.