Tepper Reads discussion
The Nickel Boys
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Showing and Telling, Then and Now
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I felt anxious reading it having seen the author interviews, etc. and having some knowledge on the basis and background for this book. So as I read Part 1, I kept waiting for "something bad to happen" to Elwood. He was almost too good for his times... And right when he seems to be at a turning point (to the positive), everything changes. I could feel it coming - the bad thing. On another note, I love his grandmother - she knows the score and knows how to play the game.
I’m enjoying the disconnect between Elwood’s attitude towards the civil rights movement and his grandmother’s perspective. On one hand, it feels easier to identify with Elwood and his desire to participate, but I also appreciate his grandmother’s hesitation. Her fear of standing out when you have a family to support/so much to lose feels equally as heartbreaking to me as Elwood’s struggle. I also found it interesting that the author deemed the MLK album to be Harriet’s biggest mistake. It will be interesting to see if there is a larger story behind that statement and how both of their opinions will continue to evolve. His arrest is exactly what civil rights activists were/are fighting against, so how will this impact Elwood’s optimistic view of the future and his desire to be a part of the movement? Will Harriet change her mind or maintain that this is exactly why you support the movement from the sidelines only?
Mod
And, sadly, I wouldn't stop feeling anxious yet. There's much more to come.
This is what I love about book discussions! The amalgam of what all of you have brought up echoes very closely my experience of the first section of the book -- admiration for Elwood and Harriet, anxiety for them and for their future, and true distress about how closely these scenes from the past mirror what is still happening now in the U.S. What you said, Stacy, "were/are," about people fighting for equality, really sums it up!
Hello fellow readers!I didn't even consider the grandma's impact in the story, I love hearing your thoughts on it. I see it now. Thanks for emphasizing their relationship, Stacy.
The empathy is real. Whitehead is such a gifted author. Jody, I agree, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how a good kid like Elwood could ever be anything but successful in life. I'm a little nervous to continue reading now because I feel like the book took a turn and I'm not sure if I'm emotionally ready to read the next section. Of course I'm going to anyway, Whitehead has me hooked on Elwood's story, and he ended that section on such a cliffhanger!
I keep nodding and agreeing to what is being said by the characters, especially Mr. Hill. It occurred to me what I'm agreeing to isn't something I normally would have agreed with. I feel like this book is definitely opening my eyes to a new way of thinking. I'm very grateful this book was chosen and that I was invited to join you in reading and discussing it. I'm really enjoying the podcasts too!
When I reflect on part 1 it's striking to me how similarly I felt to Harriet with regard to Elwood's ambitions. Partially, it's because I know the overall context of the book and a bad turn was bound to happen. But also, it came from a similar place as Harriet's worry because America's white supremacist system is/was designed to punished Black people who fight against it.In another story (with a white main character), this might be the beginning of a "hero's journey" where Elwood achieves his dreams in some form without the severe personally punishment I'm sure we're about to read. But it isn't...and the sense of inevitability of the story we're about to read, and the impossibility of a different one, makes it even more devastating.
Mod
Haley, like you, I also didn't focus my attention on Harriet when I first read the novel, and I'm not exactly sure why. But reading the book with a group of people has made me consider her predicament quite a bit. Like Matt mentions, her character had very real implications if she were to stick her neck out. I think we'd all like to think that if we were there, we'd be at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement, but her trepidation is real and completely understandable - even more so once we get to the next section of the book.
When I read this book with our Tepper staff this summer, one of our staff members pointed out that Elwood was a Civil-Rights-leader-in-training, and that's another thing I can't get out of my head now that it's been implanted there. Elwood was well on his way to being another Martin Luther King Jr.-type figure, and then it all changed when he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. His hero's journey could have had a very different path did he not find himself in a stolen car.
Below are a few of my thoughts on The Nickel Boys through page 42. Feel free to chime in about these topics, or other themes/topics that have piqued your interest so far. I’ll be monitoring the discussion, and will respond to all your comments, but please, respond to each other as well. I’m your guide on this journey, but your interactions with each other are where the real learning takes place.
Oh, and no spoilers, please!
Showing and Telling
Elwood faces a slew of indignities just to exist in 1960s Tallahassee. Elwood does have, considering how much worse things could be, some advantages. He has a grandmother who loves him and takes care of him, he's never without food, he has a home. These may seem like basic fulfillment of needs - food, clothing, shelter, love - but he's better off than a lot of people like him at that same time and place; he has a lot to be thankful for.
But then there are the indignities he must face that are part of his everyday life. There's the inability to go to Fun Town, no matter how many straight-A report cards he has, the dish drying races where he's tricked into doing others' work, the blank encyclopedia set, the longing for another person of color to enter the Richmond, getting beaten up for his honesty, the racial slurs in his school textbooks...all of these things could have broken Elwood, and may have broken you or I, but they didn't. He keeps going. He meditates on the words of Dr. King, "We must believe in our souls that we are somebody, that we are significant, that we are worthful, and we must walk the streets of life every day with this sense of dignity and this sense of somebody-ness." Elwood does this, and it couldn't be easy. Whitehead does a great job here of what writers call showing instead of telling, which Michelle and I talked about in Podcast #1. Whitehead could just say "Elwood had a hard life because of segregation" but instead he creates a fully fleshed-out narrative to make you feel what Elwood, and others like him, felt. This is the sign of great writing, writing that makes us feel more empathetic.
Then and Now
"The class focused on US history since the Civil War, but at every opportunity Mr. Hill guided them to the present, linking what happened a hundred years ago to their current lives. They'd set off down one road at the beginning of the class and it always led back to their doorsteps."
I love Elwood’s teacher, Mr. Hill, for his smarts, his activism, and his being a true educator. I've had a few teachers like him in my lifetime, but not nearly enough. Mr. Hill understands the importance of showing the through-line from our country’s past to its present.
Whitehead does the same, and one thing you’ll see a lot of as we continue reading is our present situation being reflected in the past of the book. Did anyone else get a sinking feeling when Rodney and Elwood were being pulled over? The situation was familiar then, and it’s familiar now. And while a lot has changed since the 1960s, not enough has. Here’s a pertinent quote of Whitehead’s from Time Magazine:
“I carry it (the legacy of Jim Crow) within me whenever I see a squad car pass me slowly and I wonder if this is the day that things take my life in a different direction. It’s there with most young men and women of color. It’s with us when politicians can appeal to people’s most base prejudices and against their economic interests because their fears, their irrational weaknesses, are more powerful than doing what’s right for them. It’s with us when scheming men are trying to figure out how to gerrymander their state to deprive brown people of their vote, to figure out which polling places to close so that people have a difficult time getting time off and traveling to register or vote. A lot of energy is put into perpetuating the different means of controlling black people under slavery, under segregation and now under whatever you want to call this contemporary form.”
What do you think of the book so far? What are your thoughts on Elwood, his life, and the predicament he finds himself in at the end of Part One? What other themes/topics stuck out to you in the first part of the book? Let us know in the discussion below!