title: The Underground Railroad by: Whitehead, Colson published: 2016-08-02 read: 2020-06 preview

Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize twice. Once for this book; once for Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys.

This book describes the beginning of the end of slavery in the US, but before the Civil War.  It describes a black slave girl, and her incredible trail into freedom. This trail is a system of people that collaborated to bring escaped slaves to the northern states; confusingly, Whitehead sometimes uses the term literally, and depicts trains driving underground, as if they were. Took me a while to figure that one out!

In the book Cora, a teenage slave girl who escapes from a Georgia plantation, travels to freedom via the Underground Railroad. The novel begins with Cora’s grandmother, Ajarry, being kidnapped from Africa and brought to America as a slave. Ajarry dies after decades of working in the fields of the Randall plantation, leaving behind her daughter Mabel and granddaughter Cora. Cora’s mother abandons her, and Cora is mistreated by the other slaves on the plantation. She eventually escapes with another slave named Caesar, and they make their way to the Underground Railroad.

The railroad is described as an actual railroad with stations below farms and houses. The first train takes Cora and Caesar to South Carolina, where they are able to live more like free people. However, their newfound freedom is short-lived, as they soon discover that the hospital they thought was helping them with free medical care is actually conducting government experiments to kill off and sterilise black people. They also learn that the slave catcher Ridgeway is in pursuit of them.

Cora’s next stop is North Carolina, where the situation for black people, free or fugitive, is much worse. Cora is taken in by the reluctant station agent Martin Wells and his wife Edith, who is very upset by Cora’s presence. Cora lives in a small hiding space in the Wells’ attic, where she sees a horrible spectacle take place every Friday night on the town square. North Carolina has worked to expel or kill all black people in the state, and Friday Festivals are a weekly display of racist propaganda ending with the hanging of a black person, a grisly act in which the whole town participates.

As time goes by, Cora improves her reading in the attic room, but there is no way out for her. Finally, Cora falls ill and has to be cared for in the Wells’ home. The novel ends with Cora’s journey coming full circle, as she returns to the plantation where she was born and confronts her past.