Karen’s Pick
September 2016
The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead
Doubleday, NY 2016
As a fan of historical fiction, I was eager to read Colson Whitehead’s new novel The Underground Railroad depicting one of the most difficult periods of American history, slavery in the antebellum south.
The story begins with the brutal voyage of African men and women to the United States of America. We all know the horrors that are associated with the American slave trade, but little prepares us for the graphic accounts of the results of the sanctioned ownership of a person.
Mr. Whitehead’s story is about the dehumanization of black people in the 1800s, for the sake of stability of the cotton and tobacco industries. Our emotions are rubbed raw with how the slave owners and slave catchers rationalized their actions, to promote the economic agendas of the country at ANY cost. If this subject isn’t enough for one author to handle, the emotionally charged trigger issues of religion and manifest destiny are also laced throughout the book.
The reader will discover that Whiteheads route to freedom is unlike the historically accurate Underground Railroad of the era, but that of a web of underground tunnels with kind station agents, platforms, tracks and locomotives to help take escaped slaves to their final destinations. However, along the way, each of the terminuses reflect the evil bred by the climate of slavery.
The story is told mainly from the perspective of a young slave woman named Cora determined to flee plantation life and her ultimate journey toward freedom via Whitehead’s fantasy railroad. Cora’s attempt to be free allows us to better understand the relationship of anguish and despair to that of hope and courage.
At times, the allegorical use of Whitehead’s underground railroad was disruptive to the readers’ emotional connection to the story. Tables set with white cloths, flowers, and freshly baked bread make for a jarring contrast to the reality of the ordeal we know as being true, albeit, giving us a moment when we begin to believe that all is going to be okay.
Be prepared, Whitehead’s story becomes more potent after closing the book. Cora’s plight will haunt you and force the question of slavery and the persistence of systemic racism in America.
This is powerful and important book. I (highly) recommend Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad to those willing to confront the dark subject of slavery as part of this nation’s history.