The Underground Railroad: A Novel
by Colson Whitehead, 2016, Kindle Version, Published by Anchor, sold by Random House, LLC
This book is about a young slave girl who escapes from a plantation in Georgia via the “underground railway.” The book, although it is clearly fiction, implies that a railroad really existed underground and was dug by hand by escaped slaves and other interested individuals. This book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, but I guess I missed the point as I couldn’t get the concept that the underground railroad as it is depicted didn’t really exist. The underground railroad was, in actuality, a series of routes and safe houses used to enable the fugitives to make their way north to freedom.
Because of the fiction associated with the “real” underground railroad, I had a harder time buying the rest of the story. I believe an historical novel should teach us something about the times and actual historical events. The book definitely tried to do this by describing in detail the conditions of captivity under a cruel master. Unfortunately, the larger fiction of the “railroad” casts a shadow of doubt on anything else in the book.
I have given the book a higher rating than I would otherwise due to the higher purpose it is attempting to convey.
Comments
The Underground Railroad: A Novel — No Comments
HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>