Колсон Уайтхед - The Nickel Boys

Nathaniel Penn’s GQ article “Buried Alive: Stories From Inside Solitary Confinement” contains an interview with an inmate named Danny Johnson in which he says, “The worst thing that’s ever happened to me in solitary confinement happens to me every day. It’s when I wake up.” Mr. Johnson spent twenty-seven years in solitary confinement; I have recast that quote in chapter sixteen. Former prison warden Tom Murton wrote about the Arkansas prison system in his book with Joe Hyams called Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal. It provides a ground’s-eye view of prison corruption and was the basis of the movie Brubaker, which you should see if you haven’t. Julianne Hare’s Historic Frenchtown: Heart and Heritage in Tallahassee is a wonderful history of that African-American community over the years.

I quote the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. a bunch; it was energizing to hear his voice in my head. Elwood cites his “Speech Before the Youth March for Integrated Schools” (1959); the 1962 LP Martin Luther King at Zion Hill, specifically the “Fun Town” section; his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”; and his 1962 speech at Cornell College. The “Negroes are Americans” James Baldwin quote is from “Many Thousands Gone” in Notes of a Native Son.

I was trying to see what was on TV on July 3, 1975. The New York Times archive has the TV listings for that night, and I found a good nugget.

This is my ninth book with Doubleday. Many, many thanks to Bill Thomas, my excellent and exalted editor and publisher, and to Michael Goldsmith, Todd Doughty, Suzanne Herz, Oliver Munday, and Margo Shickmanter for their abundant support, hard work, and faith over the years. Thanks to Nicole Aragi, agent extraordinaire, without whom I am just another writer bum, and to Grace Dietsche and to all the Aragi crew. Thanks to the nice people at the Book Group for their encouraging words. And much gratitude and love to my family—Julie, Maddie, and Beckett. Lucky is the man to have these people in his life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Colson Whitehead is the author of nine books of fiction and nonfiction, including The Underground Railroad, which was a number one New York Times bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. A recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, he lives in New York City.

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