"The Nickel Boys" by Colson Whitehead

Prologue – By a now closed reform school in Florida an archaeology student, looking for a mobile signal, stumbles upon an unofficial graveyard. The official one had 43 white crosses which the students (using DNA, dental records, etc) competed to identify.

It’s 1962. Elwood, black, has been raised by his grandmother since he was 6. He gets straight As at school and is trusted by whites. Mr Marconi employs him in a shop. Marconi doesn’t want him to stop kids stealing sweets – he sees it as an investment. But Elwood tells off his friends and gets beaten up on the way home.

He’s caught driving a car that isn’t his and is sent to a reform school. He’s beaten so badly there that he passes out and is hospitalised for days, just because he tried to stop a bully. He’s advised to play the game more cunningly.

There's a yearly boxing event, the best white boy against the best black one. Boxing is "a modern convenience that makes live easier". The townsfolk come to watch and bet.

Elwood learns some life skills by watching street hustlers.

It's 1968. New York. Elwood is with Denise. He's starting a removals company.

Boys have attempted escape, some famously so. In 1988, when he's married to Milly, he meets a schoolmate and is disappointed that his own escape story hasn't become legend.

Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr, Elwood had tried to tell the press about the rape and abuse in the school. Turner smuggled out a letter for him. Elwood was punished for it. Turner heard that Elwood was going to be killed so he suggested that the two of them escape. Elwood's shot. Turner gets to New York and assumes Elwood's identity.

Epilogue - When Turner reads about the graveyard investigations he realises the Elwood's body might be identified. He tells his wife the truth and returns to Florida after 43 years to tell people what really happened back then.

The time slips back and forwards. Some significant scenes aren't described, only mentioned - I liked that once I was used to it. It's a page turner.

Other reviews

• Aminatta Forna (For the most part this restraint adds to the book’s impact, underlining the detachment with which the violence was enacted. There are other times, though, when Whitehead slides over key moments that would seem to beg for more detail)
• Art Edwards