As many of my readers already know, February is Black History Month, an annual tradition that celebrates the history, achievements, and culture of African Americans. What contemporary novel would be more appropriate to honor Black History Month than The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead? This novel has won numerous awards, including the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. Never an easy read, but always an illuminating and thought-provoking one, this novel tells the story of Cora, a slave on a Georgia plantation, who decides to escape to the North on the Underground Railroad.
This book takes a hard look at the nation’s past and the atrocities committed on African American people. Although it is billed as historical fiction, it is actually more of an alternate history, where the Underground Railroad is an actual, physical railroad beneath the earth and each state has a different philosophy for dealing with the Africans stolen to American soil. Colson presents the different schools of thought on the ‘slave problem’ quite literally and then picks them apart and turns them inside out, which presents a unique spin on the slavery narrative. My sole quibble with the novel is that there is very little character development of anyone except for Cora, the main character, but it makes sense thematically in that Cora has learned not to trust or get close to anyone, including the reader. Powerful, horrifying, and affecting, The Underground Railroad will stay with you long after you turn the last page.
Review by Shannon Wood
Adult Services Librarian
Nordonia Hills Branch Library
