On an abandoned lot in south Florida, near a cemetery known as Boot Hill, an archaeology student discovers a series of unmarked graves. Before the lot can be developed as planned, the bodies must be identified and resettled, and the arduous legal process completed. Archaeology students discover 43 bodies, seven of which are never identified. The unmarked graves sit on the site of a former reform school with a mysterious and brutal past filled with trauma.

The school’s survivors call themselves the Nickel Boys. The Boys meet annually for a “strange and necessary” reunion during which they share stories of their past and their present (7). When the old gravesite is unearthed, the memories flood back, and one former Nickel Boy, Elwood Curtis, decides to confront his past.

In 1962, a young Elwood Curtis receives for Christmas an album, Martin Luther King at Zion Hill, and through King’s words, Elwood experiences the past abuse and the future salvation of Black people. King’s words give Elwood self-esteem in a world that devalues him.

Elwood lives with his grandmother Harriet, a house cleaner at the Richmond Hotel in the Tallahassee neighborhood of Frenchtown.