Obviously no realistic tale of slavery is ever going to be an easy read. However, the argument could be made that this story of young female slave named Cora is especially affecting, given that she begins the tale orphaned, vulnerable, and alone, shunned even by the other slaves on Randall plantation for daring to defy the “alpha males.” Under the circumstances, the suspense doesn’t derive from wondering whether or not she’ll run, but whether or not she’ll survive. Thus begins this novel of pursuit from the relentless forces of physical and psychological persecution. Much has been made of Whitehead’s decision to literally interpret the Underground Railroad as an railroad running underground, which transportation system facilitates Cora’s escapes throughout the novel. Setting aside my qualms as a scientist (there’s simply no way they could vent a system of caves that expansive), I get that the image of Cora travelling through dark, dangerous tunnels works as an effective metaphor. However, it also works as a narrative ploy for avoiding long, repetitive chapters of flight across perilous countryside, which is - coincidentally or deliberately - convenient. After a relatively short (but realistically fraught) journey, Cora is able to reach the city in South Carolina, where social schemes to accommodate a biracial population seem to offer a paradise. You don’t have to squint, however, to spot the clues that this “paradise” is merely a veneer: blacks are still economically exploited (“company stores” ensure that workers are permanently indentured by debt) and viscerally objectified (justifying the local hospital’s policy of covert sterilization). Compared to her life on the plantation, this might still seem like an acceptable compromise – which may explain (to my mind) the greatest weakness of the book: the character of Ridgeway, the slave hunter. Much has been made of the psychological authenticity of the characters portrayed herein – how the horrific events in Cora’s life undermine her ability to trust, how a cruel version of “Stockholm Sydrome” seduced blacks into actually working in tandem with white slave catchers. Ridgeway, in contrast, is a spittin’, swearin’ spaghetti western bad guy whose obsession with catching and killing Cora may help move the plot along (it’s Ridgeway’s conveniently inconvenient appearance that eventually dislodges Cora from South Carolina) but who sticks out among the palatte of other nuanced characters like Nancy Drew dropped into the middle of Macbeth to solve the king’s murder. (Yes, Whitehead gives us the irony of Ridgeway’s father believing in a “Great Spirit” that unites all living things, but this only makes Ridgeway’s one-dimensionality even more jarring.) Alas, Cora’s next disembarkation in North Carolina strips away even the pretense of veneer, landing her in a horrific town where the slaughter of blacks is the stuff of Sunday picnic entertainment … literally. The state has passed a law banning blacks; anyone caught in the state is hung off of trees along miles of road dubbed “The Freedom Trail.” A la Anne Frank, Cora huddles in an attic for months before being discovered by the relentless Ridgeway, who then proceeds to lose her again, allowing her to escape to her third destination, Valentine Farm, a free black commune in Indiana. Safe at last? Of course not, but first there’s time to relax a little and explore the complex perspective on slavery put forth by the preeminent black abolitionists of the day. Should blacks try to “earn their place” in society by embracing the rule of law, or do they collectively have a duty to help each other to freedom? While readers are still pondering this impossible ethical quandary, white neighbors raid the compound, killing almost everyone except Cora, who lives long enough to square off with Ridgeway one last time. Wearily she endures, this time conducting herself towards the hope of freedom, having learned that while the universe may be cruel and perverse, “hope” is the one thing that remains firmly in our grasp. This has been compared to Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and this is an important insight. For all the novel's emotional authenticity, large parts of this are deliberately hyperbolic, with a thick, creamy topping of irony. North Carolina never banished black people, and I'm pretty sure the South Carolina social experiment is an invention as well. A road of hanged men dubbed “The Freedom Trail”? A slave named Homer who jots down the phrases in a notebook as he journeys? Yellow fever and cholera physically blighting a landscape already psychologically decimated by racial hatred? Setting Cora up a “living exhibit” in a museum’s display on slavery? At one point, someone says “This nation shouldn’t exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.” This is brutal and impactful, as are the exampled noted above … but also an artful rhetorical trick, a fallacy of composition, arguing that something true of a part must be true of the whole. Whitehead’s implied thesis – that since slavery is evil, the U.S. must be evil – is affecting but, like all good Swiftian prose, perhaps more accurately interpreted as exaggeration for effect. As an important work of fiction, I’ll willingly give this five out of five stars. I’m a firm subscriber to the “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it” school of pessimism, and this definitely works as a devastating reminder of the barbarism of slavery. As a work of literature, perhaps four out of five stars – the writing is competent but nothing flashy. As a work of entertainment – where does one even begin? It’s like asking someone if they enjoyed Hurricane Katrina: you’re mesmerized by the horror of it, captured by the human tragedy of it, but does that qualify as entertainment? I think, in this case, I may have to justify the time I spent reading it utilizing a different set of metrics. (read less)

Obviously no realistic tale of slavery is ever going to be an easy read. However, the argument could be made that this story of young female slave named Cora is especially affecting, given that she begins the tale orphaned, vulnerable, and alone, shunned even by the other slaves on Randall plantation for daring to defy the “alpha males.” Under the circumstances, the suspense doesn’t derive (read more)

One of the best books I've read in a while, and one I am positive I'll be coming back to. Whitehead's careful pacing and slow reveal of how things work in this alternate timeline are handled beautifully.