Summary

The novel’s prologue takes place in the present day in the state of Florida. The state plans to demolish the now defunct Nickel Reformatory School—which closed only a few years ago—and use the land for other purposes. Archaeology students have been tasked with finding and removing all human remains from the land. Students who died at the school were buried in the school’s cemetery. However, the archaeologists discover a secret burial ground on another part of the hill. Those remains apparently belonged to students who were murdered by the school staff. The now adult survivors of the school call themselves Nickel Boys, and some of them attend regular support groups to talk to each other about their own persistent trauma from their time at the school.

Chapter 1 opens in 1962. Elwood Curtis, an African-American boy living in Tallahassee, Florida, receives...