Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Underground Railroad
    Unavailable
    The Underground Railroad
    Unavailable
    The Underground Railroad
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Underground Railroad

    Written by Colson Whitehead

    Narrated by Bahni Turpin

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans, and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they take the perilous decision to escape to the North.

    In Whitehead's razor-sharp imagining of the antebellum South, the Underground Railroad has assumed a physical form: a dilapidated boxcar pulled along subterranean tracks by a steam locomotive, picking up fugitives wherever it can. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But its placid surface masks an infernal scheme designed for its unknowing black inhabitants. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher sent to find Cora, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. At each stop on her journey, Cora encounters a different world.

    As Whitehead brilliantly recreates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America, from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once the story of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shatteringly powerful meditation on history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLittle, Brown (Hachette UK) Audio
    Release dateOct 6, 2016
    ISBN9781405537261
    Unavailable
    The Underground Railroad
    Author

    Colson Whitehead

    Colson Whitehead was born in New York City in 1969 and graduated from Harvard College in 1991. He has written four novels, including the Pulitzer-Prize-nominated ‘John Henry Days.’ He has written for, amongst others, The New York Times, Salon and The Village Voice.

    More audiobooks from Colson Whitehead

    Related to The Underground Railroad

    Historical African American Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Cherie Jones

      Jan 7, 2021

      Cherie Jones
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Lighter Side of Dan Chaon

      Apr 11, 2022

      I had a dystopian idea in the beginning, and in the end the dystopia caught up with me. The post The Lighter Side of Dan Chaon appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Me, Myself, and You: Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’

      Apr 15, 2019

      In her latest novel, Rooney suggests that individual identity is actually a microcosmic social structure, made up of webbed relationships and collective agreements. The post Me, Myself, and You: Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’ appeared first on The Mi

      6 min read

    • Article

      Looking At Slavery Without Looking Away. The Challenge Of ‘Underground Railroad.’

      Jun 3, 2021

      A question raised in the TV version of the novel “The Underground Railroad,” a Monitor reviewer says, is apropos now: Where can Black people be free?

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Western Rides Again

      Apr 19, 2021

      The Western Rides Again
      15 min read

    • Article

      ‘Black Sun’ Weaves Fantastic Worlds In Faraway Lands

      Dec 21, 2020

      An ambitious fantasy series is packed with vibrant characters and political intrigue – and isn't stuck in the classic Eurocentric setting, either.

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Lives Of War Prisoners And An Ex-spy

      Apr 19, 2024

      Don’t allow yourself to be put off by the cumbersome title because this is a good book. South Africa’s contribution to the Allied cause in the north African deserts and Abyssinia is well known – less so that it resulted in upwards of 100 000 Italian

      2 min read

    • Article

      Ghana Obscura

      Sep 5, 2023

      Ghana Obscura
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Final Strife

      Jun 15, 2022

      ▶ RELEASED 23 JUNE 614 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Saara El-Arifi ▶ Publisher Harper Voyager Saara El-Arifi weaves Ghanaian and Middle Eastern culture and myths together in her impressive debut novel. The Wardens’ Empire is built on blo

      1 min read

    • Article

      Liar, Liar

      Apr 4, 2021

      Liar, Liar
      7 min read

    • Article

      Rhino Ride For Adventurous Humans

      Aug 12, 2023

      Rhino Ride For Adventurous Humans
      4 min read

    • Article

      Film Preview

      Feb 19, 2021

      Film Preview
      1 min read

    • Article

      Books Of The Month

      Jul 15, 2022

      By Silvia Moreno-Garcia Inspired by HG Wells’ classic tale, a version set not on an unknown island, but in Yucatán, Mexico, in 1871, after the native Mayan people had refused to work any longer for their European oppressors. This Dr Moreau is depende

      2 min read

    • Article

      Not Everything Turns to Gold

      Oct 2, 2018

      Theodore Roosevelt once said, “When I am in California, I am not in the West, I am west of the West.” The Rough Rider’s koan has been widely viewed as a celebration of the limitless California adventure, but it’s also a reminder of the dizzying, vert

      4 min read

    • Article

      Politics, Princesses, And High-flying Drama

      Jul 21, 2023

      It can be difficult to classify a book which has a cow's rear end on the back cover and, on the front cover, a ruminating cow's front end with a road sign pointing to the mustlive-in towns of Darling and Shaka's Rock. Is the book speculation, literat

      2 min read

    • Article

      We’re Seeing Double

      Nov 19, 2019

      We’re Seeing Double
      1 min read

    Reviews for The Underground Railroad

    4/5

    2,483 ratings222 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This is another tricky one for me to assess and review. Whitehead treads a precarious line between fact and fantasy, which allows him to maintain a degree of hope in a story which would otherwise be unremittingly bleak, and as a reader from a white liberal family who has never lived in America, much of the cultural background knowledge is not available.At face value this is a very readable story of the escape of a young slave girl, Cora, from the cotton plantation in Georgia where she was born. Whitehead takes the shorthand "underground railroad" and turns it into a fantasy in which it really operates as an underground railway, while retaining certain key facts and bending others to suit the story. The fantasy elements allow the story to explore a wider geographical area and the different policies adopted by different states. To an outsider this can leave one with very little sense of what is true and what is not. There are many grizzly scenes, all of which are necessary to paint a convincing picture of 19th century America, and many of the social and political issues Whitehead explores are still potent in the context of the 21st century. Cora's story is interspersed with the stories of other characters in her family and those she meets on her journey, and real posters posted by slave catchers.It is definitely worth reading, but once again I am left feeling that I am not ideally qualified to judge it or review it fairly.
    • 5/5
      This was a brutal read. The depiction of the way slaves were treated is heartbreaking. Although quite dark, I'm glad I read it.
    • 5/5
      So very good- there's so much to digest with this book. The writing makes it a fast read, but it's so full and richly written.
      As Cora escapes from the Georgia plantation she was born on, she travels on the Underground Railroad, literally. She stops in different southern states, with varying degrees of racism that almost make the plantation look good. And that's all I can say without spoilers.
      Whitehead takes a topic that has been much discussed, and categorizes the history of racism, pointing out our ignorances and prejudices, while at the same time telling a great story.
      It really makes you think.
    • 3/5
      The Underground Railroadby Colson WhiteheadAudio narrated by Bahni Turpin3-1/2*Fictionalized account of one woman's harrowing journey out of the Deep South via the escape route dubbed "The Underground Railroad". This author's version uses a play on words by portraying the railroad as an actual system of train tracks and tunnels dug underground, each section only traveling a short distance before it would reach another stop, the fugitives departing for a short time, hiding in a location provided to them and then starting up from another station a distance away. The tunnels would just stop at certain points, then the boxcar would reverse its direction and return to the beginning of the line. Although the actual Underground Railroad received its name because the different stops along the way were referred to as "stations" and the people directing the fugitives to the next location on the route called themselves "conductors", for those who don't know this already, it wasn't literally an underground railway system. That would have made things a lot easier if it were true! In reality, the "railroad" was simply--although not simple in its execution--a series of hidey holes in barns, cellars, attics, wood piles, hidden rooms, tunnels, or just hiding places in the woods granting temporary shelter (and with luck, safety), a little food, and rest for a multitude of terrified and abused runaway slaves, led from place to place by volunteers who also had to live in fear for assisting them. The route and stops along the way changed frequently and everyone was at the mercy of trusting others to keep everything secret. Some say there may have been as many as 100,000 slaves who escaped to the northern American states and Canada through this network between the early 1800s and 1850. It's absolutely incredible if that is true.Although this is well researched and covers the topic well, the fantasy element of an actual railroad system was a bit off-putting and caused me some confusion. I found some parts very interesting and eerie, i.e. a southern town that touted itself as being a place of refuge for escaping slaves, but had an unsettling way of dealing with anyone found harboring them. It was also sad to hear of medical experiments being done to people without their knowledge (by Northern doctors). In looking this up for confirmation, I also learned that this type of experimentation occurred at a later point in history as well (from 1932-1972, if you can believe it), once again using black men who were diagnosed with syphilis unbeknownst to them, left untreated, and then just watched by the so-called doctors who wanted to study the progression of the disease. This, of course, then affected their wives and babies born to them. People are sick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskege...The main character, Cora Randall, is just a young girl when her mother, Mabel, desperately flees the plantation and their wicked master, leaving her to her own devices and to the abuses that befall young women who are left without protection. What happens next affects Cora for the remainder of her days, leaving her afraid to trust, to love, and seemingly unable to feel much emotion at all. Despite her tragic circumstances, it was still hard as a reader to feel connected to Cora because of that emptiness and lack of feeling she displayed. There were a lot of interesting characters, but we weren't given enough information about them to delve further into what made them tick. That was a disappointment. Really the dominating emotion throughout the book was FEAR. There was one shining moment where Cora received some gentle care and words from a friend, allowing her to feel a spark of hope for a short time. The ending also answered some questions for the reader which lingered from the beginning of Cora's story.
    • 3/5
      My feelings on The Underground Railroad are so mixed that I've changed my rating several times, first from a mere three, then up to a four, and back to just three stars. With much to think about and, yet, much that felt lacking, I think I've settled on a rating that perhaps underrates Colson Whitehead's alternate history.

      Oh, yes. If you weren't aware, The Underground Railroad is an alternate history with something of a taste of magical realism, to boot.

      Cora is a slave on a Georgia plantation undergoing the transition from a benevolent master to his two less stable sons. After a visit to a slave gathering leaves Cora beaten by one of the sons, Cora jumps at an opportunity to escape the plantation and joins Caesar, a slave from Virginia more recently purchased by her master, as he escapes the plantation and with the help of a local white man escapes on the Underground Railroad.

      Which just happens to be a real railroad. Underground.

      It's around this point that I did a double take and realized that something was off. I'm no scholar of the slave-owning south, or even of the American Civil War (though I've enjoyed a few good books about the period, including Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels and the excellent Civil War anthology With My Face to the Enemy edited by Robert Cowley), but I am pretty sure that the Underground Railroad was more of a symbolic name for the network of safe houses and secret routes to the north to help escaping slaves than a real railroad, let alone an underground railroad. Colson's conceit is an America just a bit off from our own, with a railroad that is real, is underground, and where each stop is a new state with new parameters.

      As Cora moves north, each trip on the Underground Railroad takes her to a new state, and each state has its own version of what might have happened if history had taken a slightly--or significantly--different turn. I won't give spoilers, but each stop on Cora's journey seems calculated to flesh out another piece of the American story of slaves and the journey they faced, not just in antebellum America, but in the post-war world. Colson integrates some of the particularly pernicious repressions that only arose after slavery ended (including lynchings and disease testing on blacks) in a way that makes it as sinister as it was, reminding us that America's history with race is anything but blameless.

      Indeed, here's where I lean towards wanting to rate The Underground Railroad higher: we read the book as part of a book club and while we spent very little time discussing the actual book we did spend significant time discussing the issues of race in modern America. (The irony of a group of white men discussing race from the comfort of quiet and relatively homogenous Utah does not escape me. At one point, someone asked me a direct question about how I thought we could improve how we deal with race in our country and I was forced to admit that I had no idea. All I could offer is that we could probably start off with individual attitudes of humility and acceptance of others' differences, but otherwise--who am I to tell others how to solve their problems?) Brittany, my wife, read The Underground Railroad at the same time I did, and we found lots of opportunity to discuss the issues it raised, as well. (The book she next read was Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me, which she insists I should read, as well, so I guess we're on a streak?) Any book that provokes discussion and reevaluation of perspectives is, in my humble opinion, worthy of some repute.

      But why only three stars and not four? I think the way the book fell short was in Whitehead's development of characters, especially Cora. Despite lots of opportunity for building sympathy and depth, Whitehead leaves her just out of reach, almost disconnected from the sometimes more sympathetic characters around her, a woman who often seems unwilling to allow herself to feel, and thereby gain a color that might endear her to the reader.

      Would I recommend The Underground Railroad? Probably, though not without reservation. It is not for everyone, but probably the right kind of literary fiction that will meet the guidelines of the bookclub-type reader.
    • 3/5
      Honestly, the book was kind of a let down for me. I went into this thinking that it was historical fiction, but it isn't. It's historical fiction with a heavy dose of "alternate" scenarios. The Underground Railroad in this book is an actual, physical railroad. I'm not sure why the author chose to do this, because it added absolutely nothing to the story. If anything, it cheapened the story's true horrors (slavery) because it made it seem like "well, if this part of the story isn't realistic, then maybe none of it is." I wanted to like the character of Cora, but the book felt distant and impersonal to me. It was impossible for me to develop any feelings or attachment for her.It was an okay story, but I wasn't blown away by it. I don't think I'll remember much about it after a few weeks, unfortunately.
    • 4/5
      Fascinating story.
    • 3/5
      Only one novel has won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Arthur C Clarke Award. This one. The Pulitzer Prize is not known for giving out gongs to genre works, so it comes as little surprise on reading The Underground Railroad to discover that it’s not actually a genre novel. It’s not even borderline. Its one conceit is related to the title – that the underground railroad, a network of people who smuggled escaped slaves north, was an actual railway. Underground. A very forgiving genre reader might consider that alternate history, except, well, it doesn’t actually change history. Cora’s story would be exactly the same without the book’s conceit. Which doesn’t make sense anyway. The first underground railway was in London and it opened in 1863. The Underground Railroad takes place before the American Civil War, which began in 1861. However, not only is the underground railroad of the book historically unlikely, it’s also technologically unlikely. How would it be built? And run? But then, it doesn’t actually feature that much in the novel. Cora rides on it twice. She spends a third of the story hiding in an attic. As a dramatised history of slavery in mid-nineteenth century US, The Underground Railroad does an admirable job of demonstrating how vile and reprehensible an institution it was, although to be fair if you need that demonstrating to you then there’s something wrong with you. There is no moral justification for slavery. Of any sort. Whitehead structures his narrative weirdly and I’m not convinced it works. He skips back and forth in time, from character to character, promising stories that take nearly half the book to appear, or reporting on the death of a character before jumping to a point just before his death (and, to be honest, the scene serves no real purpose). I’m not convinced The Underground Railroad is an especially good novel. On a sentence by sentence level, the prose is good, and often excellent. But the structure is all over the place and the central conceit is a paper-thin gimmick. It’s certainly not genre. However, it tackles an important topic, and does so in a way that gives it a wide audience – and that’s something that shouldn’t be trivialised.
    • 5/5
      This was a hard book to read and an easy book to read. It was hard because the subject matter is terrible to think about. When we look at the past, the horrendous way humans were treated is heartbreaking to say the least. Easy to read because the way this book was written it drew me in and I could not stop. The metaphoric "Underground Railroad" was translated into actual engines, coaches, cattle cars etc. that took runaway slaves to new places in real tunnels. The station masters and conductors were all in the story, but they ferried their passengers to houses with actual train stations built underground. It was an interesting premise.

      The story of Cora is amazing. She spoke to me as I read about the horrors, the highs and the lows of her life. She is an extremely resilient and strong character and I agree with other reviewers that I wish her story did not end in this book. In fact, it just stopped, there needs to be more. I would love to know where she ended up, what her life became etc. I liked the sections that were interjected to give us background on the various people she met along the way that both helped and hindered. It filled out he story knowing more about them and what caused them to do what they did. A wonderful read and I recommend it to anyone.
    • 4/5
      The idea of an actual railroad built underground transporting slaves to freedom is neat, but the novel itself could stand alone without the railroad.
    • 5/5
      Mind-numbing angst, physically exhausting, tense reading. A very timely and needed book. No white-washing or romantic notions of slavery are left unturned and exposed.
    • 5/5
      So much pain. This is a tremendous achievement. Fine writing. Carefully structured storytelling. An aggregation of pain and evil inflicted not just by an overseer or a plantation owner but by communities, cities, states and an entire country.

      Finding new ways to shock and create empathy for centuries of injustice and bone-deep rottenness, Whitehead has written something good and valuable. The discomfort comes from feeling the continued importance of reading these stories.
    • 5/5
      I can't think of any criticisms. This is just really good. Emotionally hard-hitting, excellent writing, good history. I love it.
    • 5/5
      Gripping, intense and heart-wrenching. Alternate history, but for the most part not too far from the truth. Shaking the notion of the railroad itself, turning it to an actual one, brings further food for thought. This is an important book for many different reasons, history should not be buried and forgotten. Not when it makes someone uncomfortable, not when we can still see traces of it today. The only way to learn and understand previous mistakes is to know of them.
    • 3/5
      OK, I am hung up on the concept of an actual underground railroad. I think I understand the author's use of the concept, it constantly "derailed" me as I read.
    • 4/5
      This is not my usual type of book but I really enjoyed it.Its the story of Cora a slave girl in the Deep South of America and describes the harsh details of her existence on the cotton farm where she was born and raised.The white farmers are horrible and sadistic to the Blacks. They treat slaves worse than dogs.Cora is approached by Caesar another slave asking her to escape with him. She originally says no as her Mother escaped years ago and is a bit nervous but then she decides to go with him. They escape via the Railway settle, the Slave catchers aren't far behind. Cora goes into hiding there are some nice White people who try and help.Cora gets captured and is on way back to the farm she is rescued and transfers to a nice farm where she is treated fairly. The white mob raid the new farm and Cora is forced to escape again. This was a really sad but enjoyable well researched book.
    • 5/5
      Years ago, I read the first chapter of Whitehead’s novel The Intuitionist as a preview and was intrigued—but I never followed up. Finally, years later, I have read one of his books. I am still intrigued. First, let’s get the simple stuff out of the way. As a stylist, Whitehead is superb. This is not to say that the whole book reads like Steinbeck (or Raymond Chandler), but it just flows along, from image to image, with the occasional memorable passage that stands out, but doesn’t draw so much attention to itself that it makes the preceding words look like a mere lead-in. Whitehead is also very good at characterization, even for characters whose role in the novel is fleeting. Always, though, there is the ability for the reader to fill in a few blanks based on his or her own opinions of mankind.Then there is the novel itself. The PULITZER PRIZE WINNING novel itself. And it is one of the oddest works of imagination I have ever read. It starts as a fairly conventional narration of the horrors of slavery, focusing on Cora, whose mother ran away from the Randall plantation when Cora was 10, leaving her a small vegetable patch and leading to Cora’s banishment to a sort of second-rate slave quarters—because even among slaves, there still has to be some sort of hierarchy. Soon, Caesar, a slave who was educated by his first master then denied his promised freedom at her death, asks her to escape the plantation with him. He figures if her mother got away, Cora will be a good luck charm.And so they run, and the surrealistic, apocalyptic, downright strange part of The Underground Railroad begins. Because in Whitehead’s novel, it isn’t figurative. There actually is a railroad underground, hidden deep beneath a barn, for instance, with its long set of entrance steps well hidden. And at this point, I will stop narrating, because this is what you probably already know without having read the book. When Cora and Caesar end up in South Carolina, things enter into an alternate universe. And later chapters in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Indiana are alternate universes of a different kind.What is most notable about the book after its opening chapters, however, is how it stops becoming a continuous narrative and begins to jump around a bit, telling us things from the future and leaving long gaps to be filled in, briefly, later. I’m sure that somewhere Whitehead has explained his technique here. Someone wanting to be critical might wonder if he got a bit tired of filling in all the details and just wanted to make his points without writing a 600-page novel. If so, hurray for Whitehead.I don’t think that was his intent, however. Because after the opening narrative ends, each chapter is a set piece with a clear point to make. There are, for instance, the radically different “solutions” South Carolina and North Carolina arrive at to deal with the presence of so many slaves in their midst—perhaps a majority of the population. Then there is the apocalyptic vision of Tennessee, which is spectacularly memorable. And Indiana, where Whitehead makes his final point about slavery—or perhaps about solidarity. Writing all of this as part of a much longer narrative, would have dulled the impact of these chapters. Again, I think Whitehead is respecting the reader’s intelligence by not filling in every point.The overall effect of reading this book is one of wonder and of horror. The inhumanity of slavery has never been made clearer. Despite its flights of fancy, Whitehead’s book is solidly grounded in well-researched reality. His descriptions of the different mindsets between those who are born free and those slaves who become free, are memorable. The imprint of the chains remains. Somewhere in the book, there may also be a little bit of hope, at least in the spirit of some of the characters, black, white, and mixed. But given the present state of America, where racial hatreds still run so deep and are still stoked by demagogues, Whitehead’s novel much also stand as a warning. I am not religious—but is it too late for us to repent?
    • 4/5
      A harrowing and brutal account of slavery in the American South and a woman's attempt at escape.
    • 2/5
      I wanted to love this book so much, I know it's about an important topic, and the author won a bunch of awards, and I was shocked about the reviews I had read...
      Until I read it for myself. First things first, if you want to read a book from the time of slavery, check out 12 years a slave or Cane River(probably one of the best books I have ever read).
      This book had so much potential but it missed every single mark.
      The narrative was not a good look. The ending was weird.
      Check it out and remember, you don't have to take my word for it.
    • 4/5
      We all know what the Underground RR was or at least we think we know. It helped Blacks to escape slavery in the south. But this story takes on a twist and makes the Underground RR a real RR. Well done story of people and their lives during and after their escape.
    • 5/5
      Wow. The anachronisms threw me at first, until I started to understand how Whitehead was using them. Then I became totally engrossed.
    • 4/5
      Such vital history in this novel. It is so hard to believe that we actually treated individuals with such disdain, all because of the color of their skin. The language is hard to get into, as Colson Whitehead uses the lingo that was probably actually used. Once you get past that and get into the characters and the history, it is an important read.
    • 5/5
      Incredible
    • 4/5
      With just a little magical realism, this is an otherwise harrowing story of an escape from slavery.
    • 4/5
      I felt the brutality in the book was a little over the top. I am glad I read the book. Interesting take on the Underground Railroad.
    • 3/5
      Some absolutely stunning writing, and a page turner. But many of the secondary characters were a little undeveloped and hard to imagine as real, with the exception of the enigmatical homer, who jumped out of the page. Cora is a little bit too generic a strong female type to be fully fleshed out too but the central conceit and bringing us through state after state of the differing traps blacks faced in the era was brilliant. Strong conceptually but not so much character wise and full of as harrowing subject matter as they come
    • 5/5
      I found this to be a painful read especially at this time. Cora's journey from slavery to escaping it and being recaptured is told through her eyes, with short vignettes through the eyes of others whose lives intersected hers. I do not understand why there is so much hate based on skin color. While I hesitated to pick it up, once I did I was compelled to finish it. The words are powerful as are the actions of many on the question of slavery and life after slavery.
    • 3/5
      At the start I could see why this was heralded as a masterpiece, but the longer it went on the less I liked it. The start, on life on the plantation, is brilliantly visceral, but as good as it is one can't help feeling we've been there before, in dozens of books, films and TV shows. Then we get to the railroad, the artistic flourish that turns the metaphor into a literal series of stations - and our characters are spirited away to other locations that again reminded me of other stories. We have the creepy town where life isn't all it seems, and the Walking Dead-style commune that we know can't last for ever. I did love parts of this book, but can't help feeling let down given the praise it's received.
    • 5/5
      This is the second novel by Colson Whitehead which I have read, and my original opinion stands. He is a gifted writer. In this instance, he creates a character, Cora, who is so engaging that the reader can survive the horrors of her life. The blend of historically enlightening details about the Underground Railroad are masterfully combined with a gripping plot. I learned more about the nature and timing of the railroad journey and I felt tremendous humility in the face of the courage and determination of the slaves and the "stationmasters". Tragic though it is that such powerful drives were requirements for the railroad to work, it is a piece of American history to feel proud of. I wish it did not feel as if we might need it again in some form given the current political climate.
    • 5/5
      This feels like the right book at the right time. In its ambition, it reminds me of The Handmaid's Tale--both books use allegory to elucidate the long history of oppression and all the forms it takes.Cora is a slave in Georgia who escapes her tyrannical owner with another slave. Her journey through the South on the Underground Railroad--which here is literally a railroad underground--stops in each state, where white oppression of blacks is practiced in a different, horrifying way, reflecting the brutal forms oppression of black people has taken throughout American history. Cora's simple dream of freedom is snatched away again and again, but she keeps moving. Her antipathy toward white people grows and grows, and we can't blame her. Short studies of other characters widen the scope to examine the many ways slavery and oppression destroy people. The book poses the question of whether the gulf between oppressors and the people they had enslaved can ever be crossed, but doesn't attempt to really answer that question, probably because we haven't yet figured out the answer as a society. Epic and ambitious, this is a story not to read for plot or character but to gain a better understanding of who we are and what we have done.