Inspired by a horrific reform school in Florida that closed in 2011, Colson Whitehead imagines two black boys trying to survive a juvenile reformatory in the Jim Crow South. One grew up believing in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s aspiration to “still love” those who jail you; both find that the people who run the institution are serial abusers. Like The Underground Railroad, Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning 2016 novel, The Nickel Boys draws from American history to ensure readers experience the pressing relevance of his characters’ dark reality.
Buy now: The Nickel Boys