Colson Whitehead's New Novel Takes Readers to the Jim Crow-Era South

GR: How did you first hear about the Dozier School?

CW: I came across it on Twitter, where I follow a lot of news outlets. At one point in the process of digging up the graves, there was a status report. It was a blip in terms of national media, but it was covered extensively in Florida.

GR: At what point did you know that you were going to write this story, not just read about it?

CW: Really the first day, when I was processing. It seemed so horrific, and yet I had never heard of it. I don't think a lot of people had. The coverage subsided quickly after that one day in August. And the people I found in my first sweep of articles about the place were mostly white, while most of the students were African American. So it just seemed there was a story waiting to be told there.

GR: It struck me that a theme in The Nickel Boys and also in The Underground Railroad is the idea that pain of abuse and racism transmits across generations. It's what President Barack Obama said of The Underground Railroad, and I saw those themes in The Nickel Boys as well. I wondered if you agree with that?

CW: I don't know about transmit. There's institutional racism, there's control of black people under slavery, and then that becomes converted after Reconstruction to Jim Crow laws. It's converted now to a racist police apparatus, gerrymandering, the incarceration state. There have been articles about the pain of slavery, the Holocaust being transmitted as if it's a physical thing. I don't know much about that science. But the structures to control black people 20 years ago are still operating now in different guises.

GR: Was part of your interest in writing this to illuminate a part of history? My assumption is that many Americans don't know about these reform schools.

CW: Yes. I had no idea about them. I mean, you know about abuse in orphanages and institutions in general, the kind of abuse that happens when grownups are in charge of powerless children and youth. But I wasn't acquainted with the reform school system, how it came into being, and how it actually worked. So it was news to me and, of course, provides a backdrop for the two boys.

GR: I’d love to learn more about your process. I have read that you aim to write eight pages per week. Is that accurate?

CW: Yes, if I have a week to myself, and I'm not teaching, or traveling, or celebrating Thanksgiving with family members. If I can work, say, Monday, Tuesday, and then Friday and Saturday, that’s two to three pages a day, which adds up to about eight pages in a week. Sometimes it's seven, sometimes it's 12. But if I do eight, I feel I've done a lot that week. After a month, that’s 30-something pages, and after a year, that’s 300. Writing a novel is a marathon, and this is a way to break down the work into units. If I can get eight pages closer every week, I'm definitely less insane.

GR: That seems very doable.

CW: For me, it is. I mean, some people have to write every day, and some people [Laughs]...I don't know what people do, frankly. But for me, I can work different days of the week, and if I'm putting in four or five hours, it adds up.

GR: When do you go back and reread what you've written?

CW: I go forward and back, forward and back. If I get up one day and I don't feel like writing, maybe I'll revise. As the book changes, or I figure out things, I’ll go back and bring the earlier part of the book up to the new standard or idea. So, for example, if the narrative voice changes, I’ll go back to page one and bring it up to the now-prevailing voice. I'm always going forward and back.

GR: Do you ever have mornings where you doubt your direction or the whole idea?

CW: Not the whole idea. I outline before I start, and usually I’ll let the idea kick around my head for six months or a year. That way, I won’t get to the middle and feel it's a stupid idea. So I don't doubt the idea, but I definitely have doubts, like: Does this chapter work? Is this character working? Is the pacing too fast? Too slow?

GR: I won't put any spoilers in this, but there was a twist in The Nickel Boys. Did you always intend for it to be there?

CW: Yes. I started writing it in the spring of 2017 and came up with the plot, and the twist, in the spring of 2016. So it was in the back of my head before I actually started writing.

GR: What makes you the most proud of all that you've accomplished in your 20-year writing career?

CW: No one thing. It's all been sort of a crazy ride. Nine books, and I've had ups and downs. I think the first response to The Underground Railroad, from my wife, my agent, and my editor were very strong and encouraging. There was something in their voice that told me I'd done something different. And then when I got to the end of The Underground Railroad and finished it, I was very proud of those last 30 pages. It was the best work I'd done in my career. For many months, I basked in my pride of how I wrapped up that book. There are so many great things: the recognition, becoming a better writer, becoming a better person, and having my wife and kids in my life and all the things I didn't have 20 years ago. It all goes together.

GR: When someone is as talented as you are, how do you get better?

CW: That's nice of you to say. For me, it’s to not do the same thing. Each time I start a new project, I think: Is this a new kind of character, is this a new kind of challenge, a new kind of genre I want to explore? What do I want to keep from postapocalyptic science fiction in Zone One? I haven't done a historical novel before—what are the things I like about that genre, the things I hate about it? I haven't done a first-person narrator before—what are the strengths and disadvantages of that?

GR: Do you read your reviews?

CW: I read the first third, and then after that, a good review is a good review and a bad review is a bad review. When people say they don't read reviews, I think they’re lying.

GR: Are there any books that you want to read now?

CW: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, which came out this month. What else...I’m looking at my bookshelf…Tracy K. Smith's new collection, Wade in the Water. Exhalation by Ted Chiang.

GR: How did winning the Pulitzer change your life?

CW: It's something you don't really expect. Or when you’re younger, you're like, “Oh, maybe that will happen to me!” And then the reality of the writing life and life in general is such that you put away lofty ideas like that.

The recognition, and the acknowledgment, was great. The fact that it brought more readers to the book was great. And then, just in terms of my mood, I was in a good mood for about a year. I'd be standing in line at the grocery store and think, “Ah, these idiots! It’s supposed to be a ten-item lane, and this guy has 12 items!” And then a force would say, just chill man, just chill. Like, what are you complaining about? And then I would relax.

GR: Is there one piece of advice you find yourself giving aspiring writers?

CW: Read a lot to find out what kind of writer you want to be, and then write a lot to find out what kind of writer you actually are. And then, obviously, you have to stick with it. There's a lot of disappointment. And going back to what I said about the challenge, if there's a story that's personal or a story that's first person that you've been avoiding…maybe you should try it.