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 the 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 both 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:
After reading The Underground Railroad I can see why it won so many accolades. This rich and layered narrative is truly a must-read. The unremitting pain of Cora's life was presented in such a deadpan way it underlined the stark horror of slavery. Envisioning the Underground Railroad as a real railroad gave the whole concept an air of fantasy and power for the reader that I think must echo the way reality of it at the time- spoken about only carefully, treasured for the sliver of hope for escape that it provided. The story is often violent and disturbing and it does not make for a comfortable read, but no story about slavery should. Once I started reading, I could not put it down, and I'm still thinking about it weeks after finishing it. 5 stars.
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