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The Stacks
Ep. 343 The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead — The Stacks Book Club (Franklin Leonard)
01:08:53
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- [00:00]
Tracy Thomas
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- [04:25]
Franklin Leonard
Thank you for having me. I'm anxious about this. I. I mentioned this before, but I'm anxious about this conversation. I don't think I've had a conversation about a text in years, at least in public.
- [04:36]
Tracy Thomas
I have a feeling that you're we're going to get to the end of this conversation and you're going to be like, that was so much fun. Every time I do a book club episode when people feel anxious about it, they end up really having a good time. So I'm just going to put that into the universe and I hope that.
- [04:50]
Franklin Leonard
We, to be clear, I think I'll have fun. I think there will be a cycle of oh my God, I sounded like an idiot immediately after the conversation's over. That's my bigger fear.
- [05:00]
Tracy Thomas
Well, let me Tell folks what we're talking about. Today is the Stacks Book Club Day. We're talking about the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award winning novel, the Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, which is also being turned into a major motion picture which you and I have both seen. So we can talk about it briefly. Though originally it was coming out at the end of October. Now it's not coming out until December. So people at home, you'll have to wait a little bit longer.
- [05:26]
Franklin Leonard
Wait, I'm going to interrupt you for one second because I want to point out that then moving it to December is a mark of distinction of how strong the movie is. You do that when you know that your movie is in the hunt for Academy Awards, as this one is, and that is why it was moved. So for those unfamiliar with the goings on in Hollywood, the move is an indication even more that you should see the film, not less.
- [05:52]
Tracy Thomas
Yes, yes, yes, yes. But you'll just have to be more patient. For folks who are listening who haven't read the book, please know we are going to spoil this book. And this is one of those books that you do want to read before it gets spoiled for you. So you can turn us off and read the book. It's very short. And come back. And everybody else, I'm going to give you a quick rundown of what, what the book is about. It is about a young man named elwood in the 1960s Living in Florida who gets in trouble with the law and sent to a reform school for boys called the Nick called Nickel.
- [06:29]
Franklin Leonard
Nickel Academy.
- [06:29]
Tracy Thomas
Academy called the Nickel, called Nickel Academy. It is for both white and black children, though it is segregated. And he meets another boy there named Turner, and they become besties and the place is really up and abusive and they treat the kids terrible. And it is based on a true, true story, true history. So that's sort of the quick rundown we always start here, Franklin, which is like, just generally, what did you think of the book? And was this your first time reading it?
- [07:03]
Franklin Leonard
This was my first time reading it. And it's funny because this conversation, like deciding to have this conversation, coincided with the movie coming out. And I was asked to moderate the Q and A's for it at the Telluride Film Festival. And so I was reading it in sort of double capacity, which, you know, if you value efficiency in your life like I do, it was like, this is a win. I have to read a book that I've wanted to read for a while. And it has two purposes. I was flattened by this book. And absolutely heartbroken by it, I think. Look, there's no secret that I'm a fan of Colson Whitehead. There's a reason why a lot of people are fans of Colson Whitehead as a writer. But this book in particular, yeah, it just obliterated me in so many ways and I think has forced a lot of introspection about what I believe about the world as a consequence.
- [07:49]
Tracy Thomas
Ooh. Okay, we're gonna talk about that. Did you read it? You read it before you saw the movie?
- [07:55]
Franklin Leonard
Yes, I read it before I saw the movie.
- [07:56]
Tracy Thomas
Okay. Same. So this was my second time reading the book, and I. The first time I read the book, felt the same as you. I was, like, gutted by the ending. I did not see the sort of twist, which we can talk about coming, even though it is literally on the COVID of the book, somehow. Missed. I missed that.
- [08:18]
Franklin Leonard
You're not the only one.
- [08:19]
Tracy Thomas
But on this. Yeah, I don't think so. I think a lot of people missed it. But on this second read, I have to be honest with you, I didn't like it as much.
- [08:29]
Franklin Leonard
Really.
- [08:31]
Tracy Thomas
To me, the ending was so important, I think, for my love of the book. Like, that I was so blown away by this twist and that that was so much of the emotional resonance that. Because I knew that was coming. I think I just read the whole book this time looking for clues to see how he did it and kind of being disappointed because I felt like he didn't really. There were no tricks. He just did it. He just was like, nope, this is another kid. He does leave clues throughout, including the first sentence of the book and the COVID and all of that. But I didn't. I don't. I don't know why I didn't feel as tied to the book in the same way that I did the first time. I mean, don't get me wrong. I think it's really good. I think the writing is really good. But I didn't have any emotional response even to some of the earlier stuff, some of the abuses and things. And I maybe attribute that to the fact that I read a lot of dark nonfiction about this kind of stuff. And so I sort of wasn't feeling, like, as sad about it. I don't know. I did like the stories of all the boy the other boys like, in the at nickel more this time. I was paying more attention to sort of those, like. And I guess, like, sort of like little short stories about all the ways those other kids were fucked up. But, yeah, those are sort of my general, general thoughts.
- [09:58]
Franklin Leonard
It's interesting. I mean, I haven't read it for a second time, and I wonder if I would feel the same way. My instinct is, is that I wouldn't. But that's only because for me, I think, like you, I do a fair amount of reading of nonfiction in this space. And so the trauma and the violence against these kids was not actually something I was terribly enraptured by when I was reading the book. For me, it was about these sort of competing ideas about how to navigate life as a young black man in America. That this idea that, you know, Elwood fundamentally believes that there is good in the world, that people are by nature good, and that if you give them all of the information that they need to do the right thing, they'll do the right thing. And Turner's intentional distance from everybody and resistance to emotional connection and then the flip, obviously, that happens. And what Whitehead is saying about the consequences of naivete, about the extent to which speaking out results in tragedy and maintaining distance results in you being broken. And so, for me, I think, as I think back through the book, again, not this is not reading it for a second time, but as I think back through it and having seen the movie now on multiple occasions, I'm more fascinated, and I feel like I'm trying to interrogate more what is the twist, trying to say about who these people are and what they think about the world in the context of the events of the book. As I think through it, like the second reading, or imagined second reading.
- [11:36]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. No, I think. I think that you're right. I think some of it is that I went into it thinking about the ending, and I read it right when it came out. Like, my copy is a signed first edition. Like, I. I read it right away.
- [11:48]
Franklin Leonard
Save that.
- [11:49]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, yeah, I've got it here. That doesn't have any of the stickers on it.
- [11:53]
Franklin Leonard
Pass that down through generations.
- [11:55]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. But I think, like, what has stuck with me over the years since I've read it, you know, hundreds of books later, it was that ending, was that twist. And so I think going back to it, that's what I remembered most, and that's what I was the most curious about. I. I definitely think, like, the writing is great. I think those questions you're talking about, which we're going to talk about today, are also great and really beautiful. And. And. And those did, like. I did think about those things, but I think mostly I was just reading to get to the end this time.
- [12:27]
Franklin Leonard
Okay.
- [12:27]
Tracy Thomas
In a way that, like, I didn't. I Don't think it served the book. But I also, you know, one of the things that I think about a lot is like, what makes a book an award winning book. What makes a book, especially like a Pulitzer, a National Book Award, which this book won. What makes something worthy of those kinds of honors. And one of the things that I often think about with books, which is different than how I feel about maybe like an Oscar winning movie, is that to me, a book like that should be able to be read multiple times. And each time you read it, you get something new and different and it changes with you. Whereas like sometimes an Oscar movie, I'm just like, I saw it. I'm never, I'm never going back to Oppenheimer. Okay. I'm never doing that again. I'm glad I saw it. I liked it. I was impressed. But like, that, that ship has sailed. And I was a little shocked by how much I didn't feel like this book had changed for me. And so that made me sort of question like, I don't. And I, again, I think maybe I was just like went into it with the wrong energy. I don't know. But it was, it was a little disappointing for me this time though. I still, when I got to the end was still like, that's such a fudgeing good twist.
- [13:38]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, yeah.
- [13:40]
Tracy Thomas
And I guess since we are spoiling it, we should tell people if you haven't read the book and you don't care, the twist is that Elwood ends up dead by the end of the book and Turner takes on Elwood's identity. So we're, we see El, we see an adult Elwood throughout the entire book. And then we find out on page 202 of 213 that adult Elwood is actually Turner, all grown up, but taking on Elwood after Elwood's death, which is just so tender.
- [14:11]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, I mean, it's, there's so many layers to it. There's just so, so many layers to it.
- [14:17]
Tracy Thomas
Well, let's go. Let's start with Elwood and his sort of early, early in the book, we meet Elwood. He is a teenage boy. He is by all intents and purposes a goody two shoes. He is a rule follower. His, like, great, his great object of his affection is a record of Martin Luther King speeches. I mean, he is like the most stereotypical good boy. He, he's. His parents have run off to California. He lives with his grandmother. He, you know, takes a job at a candy shop. And he, he tells on the kids who are stealing candy you know, like, he is so gullible. He loses this encyclopedia. Like, he does this whole contest, and it's all of. They. They scam him out of these or into these encyclopedias. But he is always so morally clear. Good, moral, do the right thing. Smart. Going to take classes at a college. On his way to the college, he is gets. He hitchhikes so he can be on time to his class because he's our good boy. Gets in the car with this man who of course is not as good as Elwood is legally in the criminal eyes of the criminal justice system. He has stolen a vehicle, they're pulled over. The copy has a great little racist line to end the section, and he ends up at nickel. What do you make of this main character being so squeaky clean?
- [15:49]
Franklin Leonard
You know, I think that his squeaky cleanness comes from a belief that through good works there's salvation in America. Even if you're black, Right?
- [16:01]
Tracy Thomas
Especially maybe if you're black.
- [16:03]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah. That by being good you can participate in the American dream. You can have all the things that we are told that we want, even in the face of the white supremacy of sort of early 1960s Florida, specifically Tallahassee. It's funny, I think there's a little bit of King X sort of happening here between Wood and Turner and. Yeah, I think that's where it comes from. And I think that even in the early days of pre Nickel Elwood, he gets involved in this dishwashing competition. And he thinks that by winning the dishwashing competition, by being the best, he'll have access to knowledge. He'll win these encyclopedias, and he takes these encyclopedias home. And most of the volumes are blank, which, again, I think is a metaphor for the black experience in America. You can be the best, but the prize is a fake. You can do well in school. You can be the gifted student who's invited to go to this college and take extra classes, but you won't even get there because something that you did so that you could be a part of that will be intentionally misread by the justice system and instead put you in this reform school. And I'll be honest, I identified a lot with that. I was the squeaky clean kid in West Central Georgia. My parents were not unaware of the world. We're not unaware of the realities of being black in the Deep South. My father grew up there as well. But they, I think, tried to protect me from participating in a lot of the resistance around that because there was a longer view. We got to keep you Safe. You're special. If we can just navigate you through this difficult period, you can go off into the world and maybe you can participate then, but at least then you'll be prepared to do so, you know, and it was hard. The More I read the book, and definitely when I saw the movie, there's a moment where they show Turner's driver's license as Elwood, right. In the film. It's a brief shot towards the very end of the film. And, you know, he's born in the late 1940s. My father was born in the late 1940s in a place not far from from where this story takes place. You know, my. My father was the squeaky clean kid who did really well academically. He was the. The, I believe, the third black graduate of the Medical College of Georgia. Like, he was Elwood. And I think thinking about it in that context was. I think that was the beginning of the process of flattening me.
- [18:42]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I. I do think, like, what you're saying, because I. I too, relate to an Elwood as a younger person. I think I have more turn. I think I'm more. A little more Turnerfied.
- [18:56]
Franklin Leonard
I think that's what. I think that's what happens. I think. I suspect, and I haven't been able to have this conversation with Coulson, but I suspect that he was also an Elwood in his youth and became a Turner, which I think is also sort of part of the central metaphor of what the book is saying is that many of us start as Elwoods, but the only way to survive is as Turner. Because being Elwood gets you killed.
- [19:22]
Tracy Thomas
Right. But. Okay, let's carry this.
- [19:26]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah.
- [19:27]
Tracy Thomas
The only way to survive is to be a Turner. However, in the book, Turner is the one who dies metaphorically. Right turn. There's no continuance of the Turner line. The Turner becomes the Elwood. And it's an interesting sort of inversion, because the argument that I feel like is being made throughout the youth of the book is like, elwood is too naive. He's too simple. He doesn't see what's happening. He doesn't see the danger. You know, he's Little Red Riding Hood. He doesn't see the fox waiting for him and all of these things. Turner sees it. Turner says, I'm gonna write my own story. I'm. I'm gonna do this on my terms. That's his line throughout the book. That's like one of the clues that Coulson gives us throughout the book is, I'm gonna do this my own way. My own way. And. But in the end, he chooses to wear the costume or the embody. That good. That good boy, right? Like, he chooses to take on that name. And so when we. As we're reading it before, we know what happens, we think that Elwood has really matured into this other person, that it's possible to go from being an Elwood to being more like Turner. But really, Elwood is killed and Turner has put it on. Does that make sense? Like, what the question is?
- [20:48]
Franklin Leonard
It does. It's interesting. When I was reading the book, it would flip back between the 2000 and tens and the 1960s. And one of the things that I really struggled with was, how does Elwood, the Elwood we know in the early sections, end up running a moving company? It never struck me as consistent. It was like, was he so broken by this thing? That was all he was capable of. And it was. And so that was actually one of my early clues that something was up and I didn't know what it was.
- [21:25]
Tracy Thomas
It's so interesting that you clocked that.
- [21:27]
Franklin Leonard
You know, and I clocked. The moving company is called Ace, which is obviously the highest level at nickel. That is supposed to be your salvation. And then there's the epilogue, which, if I'm. I made these notes sort of while I was reading, but it's not enough to survive. You have to live. And yes, Turner is taking on the mantle of the name, but he's the one who lives. And that, I think, is the big takeaway. And I don't know that he's actually living either. I think that he is surviving. And he's surviving better than Chicky Pete did. He's definitely surviving better than Elwood did. And I think that's my takeaway. I actually hadn't thought about the fact that he's bearing Elwood's name. And what does that mean? Because I guess he probably could have just chosen any name, right? But I think it's also, as I think about it now, I think all of us who have evolved into Turners in one form or another know that there is nobility in being Elwood. And that being being Elwood in the face of the consequences of it is something worthy of acknowledgment, reverence, praise. But it's not a rest. It's not a recipe for. For surviving. And it's certainly not a recipe for living. I'm not sure I want to think about it.
- [22:50]
Tracy Thomas
I'm not sure that there is something. I think we're told there's something noble about being an Elwood, but I don't. I don't know that that's true. I think that that's like a nice idea that, like, we have been taught that is like, internalized into us, that we want. That we should be like and like, that we should be idealistic and that we should see the good in everybody. But I. I just don't know that. I don't know that that's not like white supremacy itself telling us that. Right? Like, I. I think doing the thing to survive, I think doing the thing to blaze your own trail is noble to me because it. It is easy to. It is easy to be. To become a person who does things for the recognition or the approval of others, which I think is also like sort of the flip side of who Elwood is. Like, he's a goody two shoes because he wants to be seen as. He wants to be seen by another outside force, whether it's his grandmother, whether it's white people, whether it's even the people at the Nichols Academy. And I'm just like, I don't. I don't know if I believe that, that that is the right and noble way.
- [24:06]
Franklin Leonard
What's interesting. So I read Elwood a little bit differently. I read Elwood as having an incredibly righteous sense of right and wrong.
- [24:17]
Tracy Thomas
I agree.
- [24:17]
Franklin Leonard
And a belief that by being right you can win the argument with anyone. Right. That by being good, it is therefore undeniable that people have to recognize your humanity and have to treat you as a human being. I think he knows, for example, that writing a record of everything that he's seen at nickel and sharing it with people. He knows that there are potential consequences for that, but he's willing to do it, even if it attracts the disapproval of his best friend, of the teachers and may cause him severe harm. I think that he sort of represents this belief that there is right and there's wrong and you do the right thing. And in doing the right thing, you make the best argument for your humanity and for goodness. I mean, there's a line in the book. If everyone looked the other way, then everybody was in on it. If he looked the other way, he was as implicated as the rest. That's how he saw it, how he'd always seen things. And for me, that's the part that I think that we all, on some level, have reverence for. We do have reverence for and I think should have reverence for the people who are willing to stand up and say, listen, this comes with great potential costs for me. But we got to be real. This is how it is. And the rest of us, because we need to survive, because we want to live, because we got to pay our rent, may not be as vocal about the way things are by necessity. And I think that both of those strategies are what we, as black people in America, but I think more broadly, as people facing injustice, have to deploy in order to navigate the world and try to make it better.
- [26:04]
Tracy Thomas
Okay. I am realizing and talking to you about this that perhaps I am more cynical than I knew.
- [26:13]
Franklin Leonard
Well, I'm probably with you.
- [26:16]
Tracy Thomas
Well, I'm just thinking, like, I'm hearing you. I agree. I think Elwood has this very strong moral compass. But to me, his lack of understanding about the world is not admirable. To me, it is a sign of, like, his incompetence and, like, that youthful sort of bravado where he thinks just because he's seen an injustice, if he talks about it, that this is like. You know, we talk about, like, a lot of times in like. Like justice circles, like, dealing with, you know, injustice, whatever, is like, there are tactics to doing the thing that you want to do. And I think that Elwood is like, a little bit of a, like, dummy because he, like, thinks, like, oh, I wrote all these notes and I'm just gonna hand it to these people, and that's the best way to do this thing. Or, like, I. I think that, like, that part of him, worse, maybe we're supposed to think is good, that he has the strong moral compass and he's gonna stand up and he's gonna do the right thing. But I re. I read that a little bit more like, it was sort of like, I was sort of, like, disgusted by him in some ways of just, like, it's too pathetic. Like, it's too naive. It's too pure. It's too good. And I'm sorry, but, like, you're done. Like, it just. It doesn't work for me. But, yeah, go ahead.
- [27:41]
Franklin Leonard
No, I think that's fair. I mean, I think that. To play that out, though, I agree. I mean, look, he's sort of guileless, right?
- [27:47]
Tracy Thomas
He ends up tactics.
- [27:47]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, he doesn't have tactics. He does end up dead. And Turner ends up broken, and the school continued for years, and the other dead boys weren't discovered until 50 years later. And in many ways, the novel is about. Is Turner going to say anything? Is he going to go back? Is he going to raise his voice and say, this is what happened 50 years ago, and the question is, I think the question for us all on some level is if we don't want things like the Dozier School for Boys to happen, and that's what the Nickel Academy is based on. Yeah. How do we speak up? How do we navigate a world that is like Nickel, where the rules are arbitrary, where there's no amount of merit, there's no amount of distance that prevents you from being either murdered by it or flattened by it? How do we fight back? And I think what's interesting to me about the book is that it doesn't provide easy answers. It says, look, here are two strategies and here are the consequences of them. What are you going to do? And I think that's really the thing that is in a moment like the one that we're in now, I think has forced me to have conversations with myself about who am I going to be in the world. Am I going to take a verbatim sort of journal of what I know about the world and share it with the world at possible great consequences to myself? Am I going to maintain an emotional distance and just try to survive and keep my head under the radar so it doesn't get eclipsed? And to what end? Any of it. And I don't know that I have the answers and I don't know that anybody has the answers. And I think on some level we are all set with the task of making, you know, a series of choices about how we want to live in the world and what those things mean.
- [29:39]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. And I think like from a literary standpoint, having these two characters that do feel like, so polar opposite sort of arguments in this conversation about how do we show up in the world and how do we invoke change. Like they're sort of these stand ins, as you said, perhaps for Martin Luther King and a Malcolm X or just like different ways of agitating and activating. I do think that it's interesting that Colson Whitehead chose to go so like obviously polar opposite, right. Like he's really using these characters as sort of this stand in for this bigger conversation. And I think like in the real world you need some Elwood and you need some Turner and you need, need some Chicky Pete. You need like, you need all of these people because they, to, to make change, to force change. Even though for these kids, you know, it was a time, a long time coming. Right. Which is also part of the problem about changing the world. It's not something you can really do overnight.
- [30:43]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, well, look, it's not, it's not for Nothing. You know, it is Elwood that writes the journal, but ultimately it's Turner who share. Who shares it.
- [30:54]
Tracy Thomas
Why do you think Turner shares it when he knows better?
- [30:57]
Franklin Leonard
Because I think he. He knows that Elwood is right.
- [31:01]
Tracy Thomas
So you think he's swayed by Elwood's argument versus sort of like maybe being a little vindictive because he's annoyed by his friend?
- [31:08]
Franklin Leonard
I don't think so. I know. I. I find it hard to imagine a scenario where in. Turner shares the notebook with the sort of state authorities who are coming in to investigate.
- [31:21]
Tracy Thomas
JFK lookalike.
- [31:22]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, exactly. I find it very hard to believe that he shares it with the intent to get Elwood murdered, which is exactly. Which he knows would happen if he did. I think if he wanted to be vindictive, he would just take the journal and destroy it. Right. And then it's like, you better learn. But I think it's ultimately Turner who shares it. I think he is. I think that. And I think, again, we all share this tension. We know the truth needs to be said. We know the truth. We know that somebody's got to stand up and say it. We also know that it comes with consequences. And so it's Turner who's like, all right, well, if this is what you're committed to, I'm going to do it. And then when he realizes just that his friend is going to die, it's like, we got to get out of here. This is the one chance that we have to go. We got to go now. And I may be misreading it, but I think. And again, I think it's. I'm so close emotionally to this content that I'm probably imputing my own personal struggle with how to be in the world into some of the. Their behaviors. But I. I think that. I mean, Turner knows it's up, you know.
- [32:28]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [32:28]
Franklin Leonard
And so he. And he most certainly wants to do something with it. Part of doing it his own way probably is standing up, but there are consequences that come with that. So.
- [32:38]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just struggled with why Turner did it. I. I guess I hadn't really considered that he might have just been swayed by Elwood's argument of, like, this. This version of events that turns out good for them.
- [32:55]
Franklin Leonard
I don't think he's fully convinced.
- [32:57]
Tracy Thomas
Like, hope.
- [32:57]
Franklin Leonard
I think. No, that's what I mean. I think that there's.
- [33:00]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [33:00]
Franklin Leonard
Hope is the thing that kills you. I think that, like, ultimately, you know, the story of their relationship is that they begin very, very differently. Elwood is ramrod straight back, whatever. And you see Elwood beginning to drift and make these compromises and understand how the world works. And he's able to bite his tongue a little bit. But as things get worse and worse. And then once Griff happens, that's the point that sets it off. And I think the Griff situation is the thing that puts Turner over the top too, is that he knows that Griff didn't understand that which. Which round he was in and that he was.
- [33:37]
Tracy Thomas
Let's explain the Griff. Do you want to explain the Griffith?
- [33:39]
Franklin Leonard
No, I'll give it to you.
- [33:40]
Tracy Thomas
Okay. So Griff is one of the boys at the school, one of the black boys. They have an annual boxing competition between the black kids and the white kids. And all the teachers, like, bet on it or whatever. And the principal headmaster guy, he pulls Griff aside and says, you gotta do what's right. And Griff's like, I don't know what that means. And he's like, you gotta swing for the fences and miss. And Griff is like, I'm so sorry. I can't understand. And then the headmaster says, you gotta lose. You gotta throw the match. And Griff's like, in the third round. And he says something along the lines of like, but you'll always know that you could have beaten him. And that's just gonna have to be enough, Blackie. And Griff is like, okay, okay. And Griff, as I sort of alluded to, is maybe a little slower. That's how he's presented to us. He's not the smartest, sharpest crayon in the box. Elwood or Turner overhears this, communicates it to the other one, though in the movie, they both hear it. So now I can't remember who heard it in the first one.
- [34:42]
Franklin Leonard
I can't either.
- [34:43]
Tracy Thomas
And in the fight, Griff wins by accident. He thought it was still the second round. It is just one of the most heartbreaking moments of the entire book. Just. And they kill him. They take him to where they. Outback or the White House or whatever, and they kill him, and he's gone. And none of the other kids know about the. What happened. They don't know about. He was supposed to throw it. But both Elwood and Turner do. And it is really a pivotal moment in. In the book, in the story, in their. Both of their evolutions. And I think kind of to the earlier conversation, I do think maybe it resolves Elwood more. That's sort of when Elwood. I mean, it doesn't happen exactly Then. But Elwood gets the idea that the only one of the. The fifth way to leave Nickel. Well, we're told there's four ways to leave Nickel. You can serve your time, the court can change their mind, you can die, or you can run away. And at some point, Elwood decides. Or you. You could burn it all down. You could destroy the institution that is the Nickel Academy. I think that event sort of seals Elle Wood's thinking about, you know, he's got to do the thing that's going to burn it all down. And I think, to your point, it maybe seals in Turner's mind that he's got to run away like that. He's got to get out of here. This is not a place he can be.
- [36:15]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, that's my take on it, is that that moment is what makes Turner say, yeah, he's probably wrong, but maybe Elwood's right. Maybe there is some version of a path out here, and when that path fails, the only other path available to them is an attempted escape. Right? Yeah, that's how I read it.
- [36:40]
Tracy Thomas
Okay, let's take a quick break, and we'll be right back. Running a business means wearing a lot of hats, but Shopify helps you focus on what really matters. Selling your product and growing your brand. Whether you're starting a small side hustle or scaling up, Shopify makes it easy to manage everything in one place. It's the platform I use for all of the stacks merch, and it has turned what could have been a total logistical nightmare into something that is seamless, runs smoothly, and I. I basically never think about. What I love most about Shopify is how intuitive it is. Analytics, payments, inventory, marketing. It's all ready to go, and it's all in one place. And with tools like Shop Pay, which boosts conversions by up to 50%, Shopify ensures every sale counts. It's like having an extra set of hands to handle the details so you can stay focused on creating and connecting with your customers. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout we use with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com the stacks all lowercase go to shopify.com the stacks to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com the stacks hey, y'all. I wanted to take a little more time to tell you about what's going on on the stacks Pack Patreon. This is the time of year that I encourage folks to join because there are some awesome, awesome perks. First and foremost, you get everything you get all year long. Bonus episodes. Access to the Discord community, which is alive and well. You get to join our monthly virtual book clubs where we talk about whatever our book club pick has been for the previous month. Plus there's some other seasonal perks you have access to if you join. Now we have a reading tracker that goes out in December and you can only access it from December to January, so you must sign up now so that you get it when it drops. We also have the Stackies, which are the Stacks Pack exclusively literary awards. Only members of the Stacks Pack and subscribers to the newsletter can vote on which books are the best books of the year. And lastly, we have a mega challenge that is A list of 52 reading prompts to shake up your reading life and that is exclusive to the Stacks Pack. So if you love this podcast, if you want to support the work that I do, if you want to make it possible for me to continue doing this work, go to patreon.com the stacks and join the Stacks Pack. And now you're able to gift a subscription to the Stacks Pack to the other readers in your Life. Head to patreon.com the stacks. Find all the information there and I really hope that you'll become part of this amazing community now.
- [39:14]
Franklin Leonard
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- [39:28]
Tracy Thomas
Using debit or bank account.
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Franklin Leonard
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Tracy Thomas
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Franklin Leonard
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Tracy Thomas
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Franklin Leonard
Balance on a required finance agreement due bill credits end if you pay off devices early. CT mobile.com.
- [39:45]
Tracy Thomas
Okay, we're back. What do you think of the escape plan? Of. Of Turner's escape plan. He shares it with us earlier in the book. He tells us his plan is to go south, go away from the swamp because they're going to be looking for you going north near the swamp, change your clothes, eventually head back up when no one's looking for you. Disappear.
- [40:10]
Franklin Leonard
I mean, I feel like Turner has probably thought about it more than most and he's a smart kid. I think it's the best escape plan available to them.
- [40:19]
Tracy Thomas
I mean, it works. Yeah, for one of them.
- [40:23]
Franklin Leonard
For one of them. And I think, and I think part of the reason why it only worked for one of them Is because, you know, Elwood had been so depleted by his imprisonment that it was impossible physically. He wasn't as able to escape as Turner was at that point.
- [40:36]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. So what happens for Elwood? So they turn in the papers, the notes about all the. Because Elwood and Turner have been working off campus for their little work study, air quotes, their internship, and they've been doing these favors for employees and board members and stuff, like painting their deck and also like taking the food rations from the black kids food court and like selling them for more money.
- [41:07]
Franklin Leonard
It's slave labor. It's another metaphor for just sort of how America treats. Treats the black community. Right. It's like two black kids, slave labor.
- [41:15]
Tracy Thomas
It's plunder.
- [41:16]
Franklin Leonard
Sold out to local white businesses for essentially free or heavily discounted labor. That. Where the financial upside accrues to the own. The. The managers of nickel. And they're taking all of the. The bounty, the harvest, the food, the. The materials that are intended for these kids and giving it to these, these. These white businesses who are already doing quite well.
- [41:41]
Tracy Thomas
Exactly.
- [41:42]
Franklin Leonard
Sounds. Sounds terribly familiar.
- [41:44]
Tracy Thomas
Yes, I believe I've read this one before. And so Elwood takes notes. Every assignment, every loaf of bread, he's got it, who it went to, who paid for it, how much, he gives it to Turner. Turner gives it to the inspectors who come to the campus because there's rumblings that maybe something's going on at the campus or just checking in, gets back to the school. Elwood ends up being taken to the White House. Well, I guess technically not. He's like. Ends up upstairs.
- [42:15]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, there's like. There's a. There's essentially an attic, like a hot box, you know, sort of in the roof. In the roof of the building. And basically just locked in there. No windows. It's incredibly hot. No food, no water. So he's just. He's just physically depleted.
- [42:31]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. And then Turner and the other boys, One of the boys works at the office. He gets word that they're gonna.
- [42:38]
Franklin Leonard
They're gonna kill him.
- [42:39]
Tracy Thomas
They're gonna take him out back, I think is what they call it. And so Turner's like, well, now gotta enact my brilliant plan. Swoops him up, takes him out. They go, they get. They steal bikes from a family that they had done work for. They knew they were out of town. They steal the bikes that are outside, they ride down south. They're going somewhere. The whites come, the nickel people come, they shoot, they kill Elwood. Turner gets away. So sad.
- [43:15]
Franklin Leonard
It is. I also think it's notable that Harper is the one who shoots Elwood, right?
- [43:19]
Tracy Thomas
Harper's who they were working for. Who was like their overseer.
- [43:23]
Franklin Leonard
He's their overseer. But, but, but throughout the book and in the movie, he's presented as like one of the good ones, right? He's, he's a guy.
- [43:32]
Tracy Thomas
Know his secret.
- [43:33]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, they know his secret. He's, he's, you know, he's driving them around. It's like three. Like they're all sitting in the front of the, the, the, the truck together. You know, they're talking about things that young men would talk about. And in many ways, he has acted as their protector on some level because he's like, hey, man, like, look, you could be hanging out here with me. We're gonna go out into the world. You get a little bit of freedom. Or you could be back at, at the academy, like doing heavy labor. Surely this is better. Like, let's, guys, let's hang out. But at the end, but at the end of the day, he's the one he takes the gun and shoots out with dead. Ostensibly the, the man who's presented himself as a friend.
- [44:15]
Tracy Thomas
Right? I mean, and I think, I mean, clearly that's on purpose. Like, like the idea is that there is no such thing as like, good, good whiteness. Right? Like, it's all in service to, to the bigger thing, to the, or the, you know, that's not to say that there's such thing as good white people. But like, if you work in this system, even if you are nice, you still work in this system. You are still. You are this. As Miriam Kaba told us on this show a few years ago, the purpose of a system is what it does. The purpose of Nickel Academy is to abuse and harm these children. And if you work in that system, you are part of that system. Even if you hang out with the boys and eat a chocolate bar or whatever the Harper was doing.
- [44:58]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah. And. And when push comes to shove and a choice has to be made, he's going to choose the system. He's going to choose the preservation, you know, in a broader sense of white.
- [45:08]
Tracy Thomas
Supremacy, the power, you know, and also they made him look bad. So I'm sure there's some vengeance on his side too. They put, he took notes on all the shit they were doing. And this Harper guy was fooled. He didn't know that they were scheming and scamming. And for all he knows, it was both of them together. Because Turner's the one who hands over the paper. Yeah, right. They're in Cahoots.
- [45:33]
Franklin Leonard
That's, that's exactly right. I, I, I also think that, like, the, the other sort of implication here is that, you know, Elwood's not just taking notes on what the bad people at Nickel Academy are doing. He's taking notes on the system as a whole. Who in town, who's a businessman is receiving that stuff, who is benefiting? It is a litany of how the system functions and how widely the benefits of that system are being distributed. And so one could imagine a scenario where he was more narrowly tailored in what he transcribed and he pointed the finger at just the person who's running Nickel. This is the bad guy. You need to replace him. Where it might not have gotten back to the administrators of Nickel, but the real danger, the real threat is to describe the system as it is and who benefits from it. And that's the thing that is most.
- [46:33]
Tracy Thomas
Likely to get you killed, because that is the most dangerous thing. Any one person could be expendable if he had just fingered one person for one for one beating or one person for one dealing. You know, even if it was the person at the tip top, you fire them, you, someone else gets hired, someone takes over. But when you show the whole system is corrupt and here's all the ways, there's really no coming back from that. You either deal with it or you kill the child who did it and move on. Like, if it gets out, if it has to be dealt with, then it has to be dealt with. But if you can suppress that, which Nicole could and did and continue to do for another 50 years. I want to talk a little bit about adult Elwood Turner. I find that character really, really compelling. I think, you know, on my first read, that was the person I was the most connected to, the most interested in, the most rooting for. I liked the boys, but I think I was just like, wow, he got out. Like, he's got a business. You know, you, you can survive and, and move on. And I think again, I read that the book in 2019, and I was, I had not done or thought a lot about incarceration and punishment and like a lot of these things that I think now I have. And on this read, you know, my big question ended up being like, who the is taking care of our kids? Kids? Like, what are, are we, we're not doing right by our kids? And that the book takes place in 1960, in the 1960s, but like, it could be now just as easily. And, and you know, I wrote, I, this just hasn't changed as much as. As we would like to think, the punishment of black children, the outsized punishment, the over the top punishment, whether it's, you know, maybe it's not the dozier school for boys anymore, but I would argue that some juvenile systems are probably pretty bad.
- [48:38]
Franklin Leonard
I mean, yeah, the school, the school to prison pipeline alone. Right. The way in which your average kid in school, black kids are punished more than white kids. That is true in 2024. Even if it's not as extreme as it was in 1962.
- [48:53]
Tracy Thomas
Right. Even if the physical violence isn't as pronounced or as obvious as it is in this story. The way that it happens, the way that the kid who accidentally is hitchhiking with the wrong person ends up in trouble, or the way that even just like a kid who wears a hairstyle or doesn't say ma'am or sir. I mean, we got like, we got.
- [49:16]
Franklin Leonard
Kids getting kicked out of school for their hair right now. So. So, like, yeah, 100% totally.
- [49:20]
Tracy Thomas
For not putting their phone away. All of these things. I think, like, I just. I don't know, I think I've just become really obsessed with this idea that, like, we're just not taking care of the kids. And it's really devastating.
- [49:33]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah. I mean, because we're not. I think, you know, there. There's probably arguments that we're doing a better job than we were years ago, but certainly they deserve more than what we've been capable of to now.
- [49:44]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [49:45]
Franklin Leonard
One of the other funny things that I did really enjoy about the book was how the one Mexican American kid kept getting.
- [49:51]
Tracy Thomas
Oh, man, I have that Jamie, Jamie.
- [49:55]
Franklin Leonard
Back and forth between being like. Like in living, like living with. And socializing with the black kids. And then it got. I think it was literally he's like. And then he got. When he was tan, he was with the black kids. And then like in the winter months, as his. As his complexion got lighter, someone was like, ah, it's not really appropriate to put the Latino kid with the black kids. We gotta move him over to the white kids. And how he gets shuttled back and forth between these two communities was, I thought, just an incredible comic beat that lays bare how the Nickel academy generally is just a metaphor for America.
- [50:32]
Tracy Thomas
Right. And how race is just completely arbitrary. Yeah, right. Like, it's like just, you're Dan, you're not. I also love that. That also Jamie sort of becomes this spy. He's the one who's. He's like, oh, yeah, I saw that teacher over there doing this. Now he's over here Doing that. And I love that. Like, in a lot of ways, Jamie is one of our sort of unsung heroes of the book. Right.
- [50:55]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah. I would have. I would have. I would have loved a little bit more insight into his psychology. I mean, I know I thought that's not the intent of the book. And, like, one could always say that about any interesting character, but I would have loved, like, one could write an entire novel.
- [51:10]
Tracy Thomas
Yes. Jamie. Fanfic.
- [51:12]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah. About that character in that context. And I would read it. Happily.
- [51:17]
Tracy Thomas
I would read it too. I would spend a lot of time with Jamie. There's a part towards the end of the book where Elwood comes into language from a Martin Luther King speech about the capacity to suffer or his writing about the capacity to suffer.
- [51:37]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, it's the Cornell College speech.
- [51:39]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. And I'm just gonna read this section because I thought it was pretty. It's pretty good. Pull. Pull for this book. So it says, throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children. And as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities after midnight hours and drag us out onto some wayside road and beat us and leave us half dead, and we will still love you, but be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And one day we will win our freedom. What do you make of that?
- [52:22]
Franklin Leonard
I think it's. I think it's sort of an exploit. That's. That's Elwood's worldview. Right. Is like, I. I will win my dignity. I will win my freedom by being good.
- [52:35]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. I think I hate it so much.
- [52:38]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah. I, I. And they killed King for it, and they killed Elwood for it.
- [52:44]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. I mean, I think, like, it's hard to even. It's hard to be a person in 2024 who has, has received, have. Has been granted rights that, you know, we always should have had because of those kinds of conversations to. To think about some of the things that King was saying like that and, and not like. And it's hard for me because I'm like, I hate it so much, but also, I guess I'm grateful for it in ways, but it's hard. It's hard to have to, like, hear someone essentially groveling, to be, like, to be seen as human. It's just, like, so.
- [53:29]
Franklin Leonard
Oh, interesting. So I read that differently than as groveling.
- [53:36]
Tracy Thomas
Maybe groveling's not the right word, but I do want to hear how you read it.
- [53:39]
Franklin Leonard
I read it as a threat. Right. I read it as. So my attitude about this is. And I think about this a lot. My father's grandfather was born enslaved in west central Georgia. Right. Like that is very.
- [53:52]
Tracy Thomas
Father's grandfather.
- [53:53]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, my great grandfather. The arc of the black experience from enslavement to present day for me just has always felt very present. I think it's because of where I grew up. It's because I think about these things a lot. And you see the ripple effects of that dynamic in American society and globally. For me, what I read King as saying here is there is not shit you can do to us that we will not be able to endure. Do whatever you want. Do whatever you want. Threaten our children. Send hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities after midnight, beat us and leave us half dead. We will continue to be on the moral high ground. We will continue to live our lives as we see fitness it. And in time, because we are so strong, because we do have a capacity to endure that you in your violence, perpetrating, in your fear, our endurance will win the day. Right? And I understand that pose. I think that what trips people up is the we will still love you part.
- [55:03]
Tracy Thomas
We will still love you.
- [55:04]
Franklin Leonard
You know, and I read that we will love you as. Because we are. Because our humanity demands that we love other humans, because that is the moral expectation that we have for everyone on this earth. And we have already reached that and you have failed to. That's how I read that it is from a position of great strength, of do whatever you want. You're going to engage in your mediocre little violence. You're going to come at us with enslavement, you're going to come at us with Jim Crow. We will still be here. And eventually you're going to have to get it together. You're going to have to recognize that we are as human as you are and have been forever. And when that day comes, we will win. That's how I read it. And again, I will admit I am a pessimist and a cynic by nature and an optimist by practice. And so it is entirely possible that that reading of that falls into the optimist by practice thing. But, yeah, my attitude is, yeah, we're, we're. We're better than you and you can keep doing whatever you want to do, but in time, eventually you're going to have to get your together and you're going to realize how terrible you've been and that's. That's how we win. But we're not going to read we're not going to engage in the same nonsense that you guys are engaged in because, frankly, it's beneath us.
- [56:21]
Tracy Thomas
I do. I do like your reading. I think you're probably right, that that's like the spirit and the intention of the thing. I think for me, more what is like, difficult is just. Just thinking about that being the approach.
- [56:33]
Franklin Leonard
Oh, yeah.
- [56:34]
Tracy Thomas
You know, like that. That's what. That's what's really hard for me. It's like thinking about how not so long ago that was the only way we could even approach these conversations was like, kill us, harm us. Like we're. We'll still love you, and eventually we will get there. And I know that. That, you know, that was the play in the 60s, but it's hard to really, like. It's hard for me to hear that and think that because I think now of, like, how. How. I guess much things have changed because of that, but also how much things are the same and that that is still sort of expected of marginalized communities. This, like, we will suffer for what we know is right because we know that's the only way. Instead of just like, fuck you, burn it down. I don't love you. I hate you, and I'm gonna kill you.
- [57:26]
Franklin Leonard
I. Yeah, look, there's a. There's a human part of me that is like, okay, yeah, but fuck that. Like, how dare you, Right? I. It's funny, I. People talk a lot about, like, you know, the arc of history bends towards justice. And along. Along a long enough timeline, we'll get there. And I think the thing that, you know, we hear.
- [57:44]
Tracy Thomas
Do you believe that?
- [57:46]
Franklin Leonard
I mean, along a long enough timeline, yes, but. But here's the catch, right? Is that it does not that calculus that, you know, over time there is salvation. It ignores the crushing, debilitating, murderous consequences of the action. In the immediate term, not all of us are going to get there, right?
- [58:10]
Tracy Thomas
Not all of us.
- [58:11]
Franklin Leonard
Not all of us are going to survive. Not all of us are not going to be broken or killed by the system. And it's funny because I have two sort of quotes that I pulled from the book. The first one was literally the king quote that you just mentioned. And the second one, I believe is Turner talking about his interaction with Chicky Pete. The boys could have been many things had they not been ruined by that place. Doctors who cured disease or performed brain surgery. Inventing shit that saved lives. Run for president. All those lost geniuses, sure, not all of them were geniuses. Chicky Pete, for example, was not solving special relativity, but they had been denied even the simple pleasure of being ordinary, hobbled and handicapped before the race even began, never figuring out how to normal. And I think that, for me is sort of at the core of what this book is, is that, yeah, sure, some of us survive. Many of us who do survive, and I think you and I both fall in that category, have a profound sense of survivor's guilt, because we know what the consequences of getting into the wrong car on the way to our special, special college could have been. We become. Elwood. I know that my father. There are a lot of ways his life could have gone very differently. And he managed to walk on the rock, right? Walk on the right rocks across the river. But how much have we lost in the interim? Who have we lost in the interim? And I don't just mean who as black people, have we lost? What diseases could have been cured by the young men who were killed or maimed or broken during the 60s because they were just trying to speak up for the right to sit at a diner? And that's everybody. That's not black people. That's not just white people. That's not just Americans. What has the world lost as a consequence of that? And I think, again, I think that's at the central. That is the central tension that I think Whitehead is investigating here is what are the consequences of an America that is as arbitrary and as cruel and as designed and punitive and as designed to be so not just for the individuals who had to suffer through it and maybe survived, but for all of us who are denied the things that were taken from them.
- [60:35]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right, you know, thinking about who. Who get. Who gets a chance to survive. Right. Who gets to survive? And that's exactly just by virtue of being alive. We have survived because survivors survived before us. Right? Yeah. At least long enough to make it possible for us to be in the world. And I think. I think that is what's so gutting to me. And like, so what makes me hate that quote so much is, like, we didn't have to suffer. Yes, we did survive. Yes, we have the capacity to suffer. We didn't have to. Like, this is.
- [61:12]
Franklin Leonard
I don't think. Yeah, I don't think that King is saying that. I think he is saying, no, no.
- [61:16]
Tracy Thomas
No, I don't think he is either. I guess what I'm saying, like, my reading. What I think makes me, like, hate it so much, is like, yeah, we love you, and we. We will survive, but, like, we will suffer and we will win our freedom. But like, we didn't have to go through any of this if you people had just had a spot, you know, like, it's like, yeah, to your point, like, who else could have been here? We're totally running out of time. But I do really quickly want to say talk about the movie if we have a second.
- [61:45]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah.
- [61:46]
Tracy Thomas
What I want to talk about with the movie is. Did you feel that the movie pulled off the book? Because one of the things that I think I. I actually never would have said that this should be a movie. Because the thing that Colson Whitehead does so well in the book is show you what you need to see when he shows you what he wants you to see. Sorry. Not what you need to see what he wants you to see when he wants you to see it. It.
- [62:07]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah.
- [62:07]
Tracy Thomas
In the movie, the big difficult challenge is that how do you show that Elwood Old is not Elwood? Because they look different in the movie. In the movie, Turner is light skinned and Elwood is darker.
- [62:23]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah. And it's described that way in the book too, as I recall.
- [62:26]
Tracy Thomas
Right?
- [62:26]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, right.
- [62:26]
Tracy Thomas
I. I see. I don't remember it being described that way, but I wasn't reading for that. When I read. I wasn't thinking about the casting.
- [62:33]
Franklin Leonard
I think I was probably already thinking about the casting when I read the book. Maybe I'm wrong, but for whatever reason, I can't remember, you know, what it is. This may be fictive memory because I know that when I read the book I was thinking about those two young actors as Elwood and Turner. And so I might. It's very possible that I just like injected them into my visual imagining of the book and it's not actually on the page.
- [62:52]
Tracy Thomas
Okay. I don't remember. I didn't see it. I didn't clock it. But it is possible. But so in the movie, it's visual medium. You have to see things. And so they make a choice where the whole film is filmed through the point of view of the two boys. What they see, literally the camera, is their eyes in the beginning, it's really cool and a little bit jarring. Eventually you settle into it. It makes a lot more sense. But why couldn't they have just cast two boys that looked more similar to each other? Like they didn't have to make it so hard on themselves.
- [63:26]
Franklin Leonard
It's an interesting question and it's one that I'd love to actually talk to him with Mel about. And the producers, I think they just got two actors who like. Yeah. And those Two have a really good rhythm together. I was able to spend some time with them at Telluride. It was funny because I asked them, how long have you guys known each other? And like, oh, we met during the chemistry week. And you're just like. It literally seems like you two have been friends since you were children. And so I'm sure on some level, it was just like, oh, my God, these two are amazing. And then they had to solve the problem of the. Of sort of the sleight of hand of it all. And I think what's interesting about it for me is at least, I think if you're black, I think you clock it a lot earlier than if you're not watching that movie because of the skin tone issue.
- [64:12]
Tracy Thomas
And you and I both clock you, and I think about color a lot.
- [64:15]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, look. But I think that I do. I think that there's. I think that there's something in that. I don't. I think that if you're not being relatively vigilant about it or not necessarily predisposed to that kind of thinking, you're not necessarily gonna clock it as easily. And I talk to a number were people who saw it who didn't clock that issue. But I also think that the POV issue solves a lot of the problems because you're not seeing the actor. You're seeing through the actor's eyes. And then there is the reveal at the end, which I thought was actually very, very beautifully done. Romel Ross is a really exciting filmmaker. I think that when I read the book, knowing that I was seeing the movie, I was like, I don't know how you adapt this. I'm worried for. I already had a great deal of admiration and respect for him, but I was like, I don't know how you do this. And this is why I'm probably not a director, but I think Ramel's just an incredibly exciting filmmaker. And it's one of those films that you find yourself asking yourself questions about the choices that he made as a storyteller that lead you to understanding better the story that he was trying to tell, which I just think is exciting.
- [65:23]
Tracy Thomas
Did you talk to people who hadn't read the book, who saw the movie?
- [65:26]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah.
- [65:27]
Tracy Thomas
Did the ending work for them? Because for me, I read the book twice by the time I saw the movie. So I was like, just literally watching the movie to be like, how are they gonna do this? It didn't really have that emotional resonance at all for me. But also, I was literally just like, how will this moment Unfold.
- [65:44]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, no, same.
- [65:45]
Tracy Thomas
And I'm really curious to people who have no clue what's coming. If they felt at the end, when you see the driver's license, and they sort of expose the ruse, if it worked for them.
- [65:58]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, I. You know, I moderated two Q and A's at Telluride, and I think in both cases, you know, the audience is just sort of sitting there dumbstruck at the end. It's not even one of the, like, look, this is not a film that you. When the film ends, you stand up, you leap to your feet and start applauding. Right. This is a film where you are. Like I said, I was flattened by the book. I was flattened by the movie in the same way. So, yeah, I think it lands. I think it lands pretty effectively. But I also think, again, it's not one of those things where you're like, standing ovation, et cetera. It is. I need to sit with my feelings in a dark room by myself for several hours kind of thing. By the way, parentheses compliment. I don't want people to think they shouldn't see the movie. This is a movie that will just see the movie. I don't want to.
- [66:50]
Tracy Thomas
I think people should definitely see the movie, especially people who have listened to us talk about the book and have read the book. I'm so curious to know how people will think, like, in this community of intense readers will think of the adaptation and how they will think about it, like, to the source material.
- [67:05]
Franklin Leonard
There will be those, possibly, understandably, depending on the argument they want to make, who will not love this adaptation for whatever reason.
- [67:13]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah.
- [67:13]
Franklin Leonard
And it's challenging adaptation. I think Romel did a phenomenal job with it, but it is. It's. It's challenging in a way that I want more films to be challenging, but it's not. It's not easy.
- [67:23]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah, I agree with that. I think there are parts of it that I struggled with for sure. And again, I was so interested in. In what the cinematography was doing and how. How they were framing the shots and how they were doing that point of view. I thought that was, like, just so smart and interesting, and it's really beautiful.
- [67:43]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah. I'm just actually checking. Shout out to Jomo Frey.
- [67:47]
Tracy Thomas
Jomo Frey, he's my friend's husband.
- [67:49]
Franklin Leonard
That's. I mean, this dude, man. Like, really. There's another. He has another. I mean, yeah, he shot. He shot all roads lead to salt. Or all roads, all dirt roads. Taste of salt. Like, Jomo is a special, special cinematographer.
- [68:06]
Tracy Thomas
He's gonna Be a star, I think.
- [68:08]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah.
- [68:08]
Tracy Thomas
So talented. Okay. We usually talk about the title on the COVID The title is great. Whatever. The COVID is a genius cover. That fucking shadow coming together. It's a one person. I'll never forgive the COVID artist, who is Oliver Munday. A genius. Genius in the COVID industry.
- [68:31]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah.
- [68:32]
Tracy Thomas
Cover. God. Is there anything else you want to say about the book before we get out of here?
- [68:37]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah, I think that the main thing that I just want to flag is that this was inspired by Ben Montgomery's reporting at the Tampa Bay Times. And if you go to officialwhitehouseboys.com you can learn more about the Dozier School for Boys in Mariana, Florida. That inspired it. I was also taken with that Elwood, one of the first, really issues that he has at Nickel is when he's like, this is not a school. Can I get some books here? And I think this idea that you can. You. You get punished for acting above your station.
- [69:16]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. I think also Coulson's so brilliant with some of that stuff because he knows as reading it now, reading it in 2019. And on that, we're gonna see. He doesn't have to do a lot of work. He just has to make a sentence or two. And we're gonna get it because we understand the cult, the historical context of the thing. I think in a less talented writer's hands, there would be a lot more. Elwood was so mad, they wouldn't give him the books. Blah, blah, blah. But all we really need is for Elwood to ask the question. And we already know.
- [69:46]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah. No, I mean, I think there's. Literally. He's like, you know. In the hospital, Elwood wondered if the business, the viciousness of his beating, owed something to his request for harder classes.
- [69:55]
Tracy Thomas
Yeah. Yeah.
- [69:57]
Franklin Leonard
Don't get up.
- [69:58]
Tracy Thomas
That's it. That's all you need.
- [69:59]
Franklin Leonard
Don't get too uppity. Don't. Don't imply that you are better than. Than what you have been offered or that you deserve more than you have been given.
- [70:07]
Tracy Thomas
Especially when you stole a car.
- [70:10]
Franklin Leonard
Yeah.
- [70:10]
Tracy Thomas
Truth. The truth of it is that you are a car thief. You're not a smart boy. You are a car thief. So don't preten. Right to be something better when you are the worst.
- [70:21]
Franklin Leonard
Exactly. As though a car thief can't be smart. Which is my favorite part. Yeah. No, it's.
- [70:27]
Tracy Thomas
But, like, even when he's driving to the school and with the two white boys, and they're like, oh, da, da. And then the guy in the front seat's like, well, you're sitting with a real life car theme. Like, as if that is like the thing. Even though we know he's clearly not.
- [70:41]
Franklin Leonard
Oh, one thing that does need to be said. Angenoux Ellis.
- [70:46]
Tracy Thomas
Oh, the performance.
- [70:48]
Franklin Leonard
I mean, look, it's oversight.
- [70:50]
Tracy Thomas
What can she do?
- [70:51]
Franklin Leonard
Exactly. She does not miss, you know, as Elwood's grandmother. It is not a principal role. She is a supporting character here. And it's. Note perfect. Note perfect. I just would like to see her in as many things as possible and in roles that are as rich with depth and breadth as her frankly, ridiculous talent.
- [71:20]
Tracy Thomas
Okay, well, on that note, we will end today, folks. You can listen to the end of today's episode to find out what our November book club pick will be. And Franklin, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for being here. This was such a treat.
- [71:33]
Franklin Leonard
It's a real pleasure. I hope I didn't sound too dumb.
- [71:36]
Tracy Thomas
Did you have fun?
- [71:37]
Franklin Leonard
Are you glad you had fun? I knew I'd have fun again. It's more just I hope that as people hear this, they're not like, wow, that guy's a dumb me.
- [71:43]
Tracy Thomas
No, never. You're. You're smart. Don't worry. I think they heard smartness. Everyone else, we will see you in the stacks. All right, y'all, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you again to Franklin Leonard for being our guest. I'd also like to say a huge thank you to Eliza Suarez and Randy Winston for helping to make this conversation possible. All right, now, what you've been waiting for, our November book club pick, is the novel Luster by Raven Leilani. This novel is about a young black woman who gets involved with a white, middle aged married man whose wife is down for an open relationship. It is raw, it is provocative, it is messy, and it is darkly funny. Our episode on Luster will be out on Wednesday, November 27th. Tune in next week to find out who our guest will be. If you love this show and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com the stacks and join the Stacks Pack. And you can check out my substack@tracy thomas.substack.com make sure you're subscribed to the Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you're listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from the Stacks, follow us on social media, Hestax Pod, on Instagram threads and TikTok and at the Stacks Pod underscore on Twitter and you can check out our website@thestackspodcast.com this episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Megan Caballero. Our graphic designer is Robin McRite, and our theme music is from Tagiraja. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Tracy Thomas.