The Underground Railroad

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Whitehead, Colson, Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Whitehead, Colson
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Pittsfield Branch, Westgate Branch

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. Their 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.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Wordy submitted by Kikumatsu97 on August 24, 2016, 6:37pm excellent writing, strong concept. I am personally burnt out on slavery narratives so I cannot say this was a pleasure to read. So much unrelenting horror. Whitehead does an excellent job of portraying slavery and America as a slave nation.

word submitted by syedaayeshar on August 27, 2016, 11:44am amazing

Stunning submitted by Meginator on June 27, 2017, 7:56pm This book asks readers to deeply consider what it actually *means* when we say that certain people could once be owned in this country; to consider what that looked like when applied to actual--living, breathing--people; to consider how that fact has ramifications that echo today, every single day. Colson Whitehead humanizes slavery in a way that textbooks and facts and figures never can, and it's horrifying from the very first paragraph. Everything about this book is good, from the nuts and bolts prose to the suspense that drives the narrative and the characters that embody the best and worst of the antebellum United States. This is not an easy book to read, but because it is not easy it is essential. Colson Whitehead absolutely deserves all of the accolades he has received for this book and it will permanently affect my thinking about the United States of America, past and present.

Brillianr submitted by zornm on July 10, 2017, 5:04pm This book deserved every literary prize it won in 2016. It is that rare and amazing work of fiction that transcends its subject matter of slavery and its horrors. It actually made me question my own knowledge of the historical record. Whitehead's beautiful language and use of a North American style of magical realism left me in awe of his powers of imagination and his literary gifts. It will break you heart.

There are much better options out there submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on July 23, 2017, 3:30pm I could not be more disappointed in this book. After all the buzz, Oprah and Obama touting it, and winning the National Book Award & Pulitzer Prize, I went into this thinking that I would love it, too. But it only makes me angry (not in a good way).

Whitehead has clearly done his research. He obviously read the slave narratives and understands Black history in America thoroughly. He uses the UGRR as a magical device to move his main character through space in order to explore various ways that Black people have been held back, mistreated, and systematically enslaved in a wide variety of ways. There are lines/ paragraphs here and there that are deep, insightful, and powerful.

But I cannot get past the abuse of turning the UGRR into an *actual* railroad. Americans are atrocious at knowing history. Looking at the questions posted regarding this book on GoodReads, *many* people asked if the UGRR was actually a real train, or whether South Carolina had a medical situation or museums like Whitehead framed, or whether North Carolina was like he said, or whether farms like the one in Indiana existed. By using magical realism, conflating times in history, and making pure leaps of imagination to make points, Whitehead has created a work of pure fiction/fantasy that only LOOKS like historical fiction. I have no respect for this. The train may be allegory, but those who teach about the historical truth of the UGRR already devote way too much energy to debunking the idea that it was a physical train.

And the reason that this matters is that the history of slavery in the United States and this country's treatment of enslaved people reverberates down through every aspect of the nation. Through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, housing policy, the military, education, Civil Rights, and right through Betsy DeVos saying that the existence of HBCUs shows why there should be school vouchers (can you even imagine?!?), race issues coming out of our history of enslaving POC shapes everything. And for Whitehead to teach that history incorrectly when people already don't know it rubs me wrong in every possible way.

I do not believe that readers will go research the truth of the things that Whitehead presents. There is technology 40 years too early. There are medical procedures 90 years wrong. I found a review in a well known publication that stated that Cora hiding in the attic was an "obvious" reference to Anne Frank. I thought, "You don't know a thing about the Underground Railroad or escaping slavery. That's Harriet Jacob's story (_Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl_)."

Besides that, I thought that Cora, the main character, was flat. I found her to be fairly unbelievable as someone who could change as much as she did. Homer did not strike me as realistic, either.

For a book as widely lauded as this was, the six women at my book club gave it 2 thumbs up, 2 thumbs in the middle, and 2 thumbs down. I cannot possibly recommend this book. There are so many better options out there. Read ANY of those!

Book outside the box submitted by ckfinzel on June 19, 2018, 6:53pm I enjoy books that are challenging. This book had some aspects that did not make sense to me from a storytelling perspective, but I appreciated that it made me think differently and view the world through eyes other than my own. We all need a little bit of that in our lives.

Not exactly what I thought it would be, but still very worthwhile submitted by Jinxyluis on July 22, 2018, 4:12pm A compelling story and the writing was precise in a way I love, but there was some amount of spark that was missing. I was worried it would be more dense than I found it though, and was surprised at how the pacing pulled the story along. The premise of an actual underground railroad was what drew me in but it wasn't as big a part of the story as I expected.

Lot of history submitted by nirmala on August 1, 2018, 9:25am Worth the read - sad but true, intense

Fictionalized History of the Underground Railroad submitted by kath on July 17, 2021, 5:17pm Once I got over the shock of the use of a real train, I really liked the way the author used it in the story line. This is a wonderful book that deserves all the praise.

Outstanding submitted by bcartm01 on June 21, 2022, 8:14pm This is a beautiful work of fiction. I know that there was a movie or TV series made about it, but I just don’t think that I could ever watch it because of the vivid imagery that this book painted for me in my head while reading it. Colson whitehead is an incredible writer.

Outstanding read submitted by rsalles on July 12, 2023, 1:49pm I read this in two days over fire light on a camping trip by myself. It’s a wonderfully written historical/sci-fi/fantasy novel that really transports the reader into a terrifying world that no one should have had to live through. Highly recommended.