The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

My rating:

In this historical fiction, Colson Whitehead takes us on a journey through 19th century US slave plantations, their white supremacists, and an undying dream of equality.

Cora is a slave on the Randall estate in Georgia. She is a stray, with few friends, a bad reputation, and a sadistic, unforgiving master.

Her grandmother, Ajarry, was kidnapped and transported from the Kingdom of Dahomey to North America, aboard a slave ship transporting hundreds. She later mothered Mabel, born a slave, who, in turn, gave birth to Cora.

As a girl, then a young woman, Cora works in the rows of the cotton plantation in Georgia, defending her (grand)mother’s plot against all. Abandoned by her mother amid treacherous fellow slaves, her life is one of wretched anguish and despair, save a few brief moments of respite.

When Caesar offers her an opportunity to escape, she decides to seize it, despite the risk of being captured by slave catchers and returned to a lingering painful death at the hands of her master.

The author’s re-invention of the “underground railroad” is ingenious. Engulfed in its unlit tunnels, we travel with the escapees in dark trembling terror. As we travel from one stop to the next, the author details the varnish and tarnish of coloured people’s lives in different states.

Will Cora become a freed woman or will the hard realities of her times catch up with her and turn her dream into an impossible quest for freedom?

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I needed to look up some historical background information about the underground railroad to make the book accessible, and I had to force myself to get going. I found the timeline jerky, the characters playing a part before being introduced. It is a pattern that repeats throughout the book, and I got used to putting a face on every new name and then waiting to complete each character’s background as more information appeared. The setting of the pace is skilful and builds to a page-turning finale.

Colson Whitehead’s writing is raw, direct, unforgiving, even brutal at times - the misdeeds of the slave traders and owners necessarily unsavoury, and the author finds a good balance between the horrors of slavery, the business of slave catching, and the light relief of the Underground Railroad kindnesses and safe houses.

The story is almost 2 centuries old, yet the author’s agenda remains contemporary: ”The Great War had always been between the white and the black. It would always be.”

The Underground Railroad is a powerful, necessary, heart-wrenching story of hardship, misfortunes, goodbyes left unsaid, and hope beyond hope.

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