Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, 2016
Pages: 320
Rating: Do Not Recommend
Synopsis: 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 ingenious 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, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And 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.
Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates 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 a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
Review: Clearing another book off my must-read list. I had gotten this book out of the library at least once before, but I expected it to be heavy reading. As a result it got pushed aside. I decided to give the audio version a try since it was on several "recommended reading" lists, and really did want to read it.
I was sucked into the story from the first few paragraphs. However, Whitehead imagines an actual "underground railroad" complete with an engine and a boxcar. This is jarring, and in that moment I hated the story as I felt myself being emotionally thrown out of a novel in which I was fully vested. Then, I realized the actual underground railroad story has been told countless times. By creating a physical train, Whitehead was able to quickly relocate the slaves and skip over 100 pages of a story we already know, wading through swamps, evading capture with the help of sympathetic whites. This allowed him to explore other themes and experiences. In the end though, Whitehead pushes an envelope as far the historical genre goes, and ultimately tries too hard to make the "underground railroad" real.
The title of the book is misleading readers to think they're getting something they're not, or perhaps calling it historical fiction isn't accurate. There's a bit of fantasy at play here, and suspension of belief is certainly required at times.
Ultimately, there was too much fantasy, a disorganized plot, a story that went nowhere, and an ending that was anti-climatic and lackluster. I would not have finished this had I been reading the hardback version, but I'm a lot more forgiving when it comes to my audio books.
Note: One of my favorite Diane Chamberlain novels, Necessary Lies, explores state-mandated sterilizations and racial tensions, and is well-worth the read.
The Underground Railroad is along the same vein as Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing which I reviewed here.
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