The Nickel Boys by Coleson Whitehead

NOTE! As is usual in November, the book club will be on the second to last Wednesday of the month to avoid Thanksgiving.
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November's book was suggested by Diane and accepted in September's meeting.

Pulitzer Prize winner in 2020 and only 224 pages.
Dark, difficult read. Dramatized part of American history, the 1960s reform schools.
Sad.

From Goodreads:
Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'.

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out back'. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King's ringing assertion, 'Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.' But Elwood's fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors.

The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions.
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Interested in suggesting a book? Bring it up to me at a meeting (or after by Meetup messages) and we can talk about it, if it sounds like it will fit I will add it to the list to be voted on by the group. There are some genre, content and page length restrictions but we're down to give most things a shot.

I have made a Google Doc that people can view to publicize the current set of suggestions see my notes on them. I've included an introduction to make it clear what I look for, how I suggest books and how to interact with the system.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bpxyKJlZC08MduYEdX8_uOBWu_FpIqJh2NxwFsMHfIA/edit?usp=sharing