The Underground Railroad

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
by Colson Whitehead 

Awards: National Book Winner 2016, Carnegie Winner 2017, Pulitzer Winner 2017

Nomination: Booker Longlist 2017, Kirkus Finalist 2016
Date Read: June 8, 2017

 Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood, where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned: Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. 

In Whitehead’s conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, a city that initially seems like a haven but the scheme designed for its black citizens is soon revealed. Even worse, Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

The Underground Railroad is yet another novel where the harrowing reality of being a slave is unimaginable, lacking the self-possession all of us take for granted. Labeled alternate history, this novel imagines a route for slaves to seek freedom where no such railroad existed. Few slaves were saved by the Underground Railroad in reality, making Whitehead's conception so welcome as to imagine slaves having an escape. Slavery never having existed at all would be an even more wonderful conception.

 Looking Forward: John Henry Days, The Nickel Boys, Sag Harbor

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