Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad was the kind of five star read that made me adjust the rating of an earlier review, because I realized Whitehead’s book was so much stronger. So I went back and re-ranked the previous book as four stars–still very good, but not the same experience.
The Underground Railroad follows Cora, a slave during the pre-Civil War era. In the beginning of the book, Cora is a slave on a large plantation. Her mother Mabel was the only slave on the plantation to ever escape, and the terrifying slave catcher Ridgeway–an ice cold, disturbingly fleshed out character–remains enraged he never captured her. Cora’s furious that her mother abandoned her as a child, but also follows in her mother’s footsteps as a strong woman who tends to her cabin’s tiny garden patch as something all her own. While Cora is what is called a “stray”–without kin–she holds herself with dignity and resolve.
One day another slave Caesar approaches Cora about running away. Cora initially rebuffs him, but after some brutally violent incidents, Cora changes her mind. The book is a telling of Cora’s journey as she makes her way north and evades Ridgeway, who sees his chance to capture Cora as a chance to redeem his failure with Mabel.
Whitehead’s book is a compelling mix of actual history and fantasy. Slavery and its horrors are in stark relief, but there are also fantastical elements that are woven in. For example, the Underground Railroad is a literal network of underground trains, run by a mix of ex-slaves, freemen, and sympathetic whites. But the fantasy is not reduced to wishful features, there are also stomach-turning, but on-point images such as a state trail surrounded for miles on all sides by lynched runaways. Whitehead writes so vividly that I actually looked up the Underground Railroad to determine if any portion of it was made up of real trains. I know that sounds ridiculous, but Whitehead’s writing is truly convincing (and creative).
Whitehead’s writing is impeccable. He has a way of describing the gruesome horror of slavery in matter of fact, unvarnished terms, which I found very effective (and hard to read, as it should be). There is a certain compassionate distance that makes the book even more powerful. When I read some Good Reads reviews after I finished the book, one person criticized the writing as “cold, distant, and impersonal.” But that’s precisely why I thought it was so effective–Whitehead manages to create urgency in his distance. The characters are very well drawn and there is an overall impression of great care taken with their stories.
The book is well paced and compelling; the tension doesn’t waver, even in quieter moments. There were scenes of love and freedom and scenes that made me feel as if I had ice water in my veins. The book is not just about horror. It shows the dreams, strength, and courage of Cora and others.
Looping back to the beginning of this review, Whitehead’s restrained but powerful writing made me realize that the previous book I had reviewed, Martyr!, was much messier, although still compelling. Not that stream of conscious style is necessarily worse, but Whitehead’s more controlled writing was more effectively riveting. Maybe I shouldn’t compare two very different books, but when I closed The Underground Railroad, I thought, “Now that’s a five star read.”