The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Kate’s Library

Title: The Underground Railroad
Author: Colson Whitehead
Pages 313
Publisher: Doubleday
Genre: Historical Fiction
Format: Paperback
Source: Personal Copy

Summary (back of the book):
Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood – where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him.

In Colson Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is the gripping tale of one woman’s will to escape the horrors of bondage – and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.

Review:
This book has received so much attention, I was a little nervous when I began. It’s never fun when something doesn’t quite live up to the hype. I think all the buzz surrounding The Underground Railroad was completely warranted and well-deserved. This was a fantastic book.

When I read the description on the back of the book I was expecting the “railroad” aspect of the story to play a more prominent role. I love a good historical fiction novel, and the idea that there was a literal railway system leading people to freedom is such an imaginative idea! Even though I would have loved the railroad scenes to be a bigger part of the story, I understand that the railroad was a way for Cora to pop up in different parts of the United States during this particular time period, therefore giving her a wide range of experiences. I found the story to spend less time on the journey than on the places Cora inhabited for periods of time. I liked these snapshots.

I loved Cora as a character. I found her to be strong and constantly attempting to find peace and expand her knowledge despite her horrific circumstances. I thought she was a beautifully developed character. Whitehead does a beautiful job helping the reader understand Cora’s heart right from the beginning. There is never any doubt about her integrity and character.

My only complaint is that I wish some secondary characters had been developed a little more. That’s not to say there wasn’t any development at all, but I was left wanting a little more, particularly about Caesar. This is, however, a small and picky complaint for what is a wonderful book.

This was the first book I’ve read by Colson Whitehead. I thought his writing was captivating and beautiful. Looking at his catalogue, it appears that his books span a very wide range of genres. I’m always impressed when I read authors who are able to access parts of their imagination to create works of science fiction, historical fiction, etc. Such a wide range! I have Zone One on my phone as an audiobook, so I’m going to have to move it to the front of my list.

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