The Nickel Boys

Turner, the boy whom Elwood befriends at Nickel, is a suitable foil: Unlike the idealistic and code-bound Elwood, Tuner is a true pragmatist—adaptable to the situation he finds himself and not hamstrung by ideology. Although he arguably has earned punishment in a way that Elwood really doesn’t—Turner is there for throwing a brick through a car windshield—Whitehead makes Nickel such a monstrous hell that it is clear no teenage action could ever deserve such a torment. Every action has extenuating circumstances, and Turner’s moment of aggression is an expression of racial sadness and shame.

In Nickel, Turner’s modus operandi is to survive: He creates his own private safe space in the loft of an old warehouse, and his advice is to stay above the conflicts within Nickel to ensure personal safety. This view paints Turner as resigned to the harsh ways of the world, but also not nearly as naïve as Elwood. However, Elwood’s idealism proves infectious: In the end, Turner rescues Elwood from certain death despite the threat of severe punishment and embarks on a two-person escape plan despite earlier declaring that the only real way to flee Nickel is solo.

The adult Elwood is Turner having absorbed some of Elwood’s qualities, but tempering them with his own hard-earned wisdom. Turner’s survival skills become entrepreneurial success, Elwood’s confidence in Dr. King’s vision becomes Turner’s psychological stability, and, eventually, Elwood’s focus on restorative justice propels Turner to return to Nickel and unburden himself of the truth of what took place there. 

Elwood’s grandmother, Harriet, is a strong, but wounded, matriarch. She has seen plenty of heartbreak in her life—her father died in prison, her husband is killed in a bar fight, and her son-in-law is permanently scarred by racism. Still, when Elwood’s parents abandon him for a new life on the west coast, Harriet assumes the responsibility of raising him, keeping her promising young grandson on the straight and narrow.

Harriet is wary of change, and she is skeptical of Elwood’s involvement in civil rights marches. She has seen the ugly face of racism firsthand, and she deplores it, but she is also rightfully cautious about making too much noise. Elwood learns from Harriet that Black compliance in a White world is often the most prudent course of action.

Mr. Hill is Elwood’s high school history teacher. Hill recognizes Elwood’s potential and guides him toward self-awareness: Hill is responsible for Elwood’s involvement in the Civil Rights movement and his enrollment in Melvin Griggs Technical College. Hill represents a younger generation of teachers/activists who see their job not only as passing down knowledge, but as making the next generation socially aware, a mission many colleges adhere to today.

Spencer, the White superintendent of Nickel Academy, ostensibly is second in command to Director Hardee and the Nickel board of directors. In practice, this sadistic, racist, and vicious man runs the place entirely unchecked and unopposed. In charge of disciplining the boys, Spencer relies on immoral and illegal tactics: inducing terror, whipping boys, and killing those who still resist.

Whitehead doesn’t provide a lot of psychological depth to Spencer. Instead, we see this character as a cog in the vast system that keeps places like Nickel Academy outside the reach of state law. Nickel is an enormous profit center: It earns money through the free labor of its incarcerated population, both legally, through its brickworks and printing press, and illegally, by loaning out the boys to local grandees as indentured servants, selling off state-provided supplied to local businesses, and rigging gambling on boxing matches between the boys. Spencer and his cadre of enforcers are key to making sure Nickel remains financially lucrative to the town of Eleanor—as long as the system is intact, no one will rein in his brand of monstrosity.

At first, Harper, one of the White staff members of Nickel, appears to be the foil to Spencer. Unlike Spencer’s likeminded underlings Earl and Hennepin, Harper shows some measure of kindness to the boys. Having grown up at Nickel—his mother worked there—Harper feels a little kinship with the incarcerated, whom he seems to see as people. The time Turner and Elwood spend working the Community Service detail under Harper’s supervision is a respite from the constant terror they experience at Nickel. The novel seems to be setting Harper up as an alternative to Spencer—a good guy who could potentially replace a bad one.

However, in one of the most stinging betrayals in a novel full of them, Harper turns out to be just as enmeshed in Nickel’s prison-industrial complex as everyone else in Eleanor. Community Service is actually the way the board of directors distribute the Nickel goods they’ve stolen to the town—Harper is an integral part of the system. When Elwood and Turner escape from Nickel, it is Harper who shoots and kills Elwood.