Summary: A black woman boards a literal Underground Railroad to escape the savagery of the plantation.
Rating & Recommendation: 4/5, recommend for fans of revisionist history
Review: The premise here was too clever to overlook. Whitehead wonders, what would a real Underground Railroad have looked like? Who would have built it? Boarded it?
In this case, I think the concept was a little more interesting than the execution. I was expecting slightly stronger writing. Still, the story offers up a grim retrospective at what was happening, not just to slaves, but to those who had found their “freedom.“ This is the value of historical fiction - finding a new way to tell an old story. Through fictional Cora, I learned of the very real ways in which the government and the medical fields used black bodies - living, breathing, thriving black bodies - to experiment with deadly diseases. I learned of the very real ways in which the government and medical fields systematically sterilized the growing black population out of fear that the sheer number of freed slaves could mean danger for their oppressors. The entire narrative seems almost too horrible to be true, but knowing what we know of slavery, is there really any form of racial suppression that can’t be true? Which is why the gimmick pays off. If we know all of these injustices to be true, doesn’t it stand to reason that there could have been a Railroad?
“Cora didn’t know what OPTIMISTIC meant. She asked the other girls that night if they were familiar with the word. None of them had heard it before. She decided that it meant TRYING.”
If you have the fortitude to read about brutality, you should read this. I make a point of generally avoiding stories of slavery, in literature and in media. It’s for my mental health, which I’ve realized is fragile. Avoidance doesn’t change history, though, and there’s value in exploring dark times in order to bring light into perspective.
“Stolen bodies working stolen land.”
Sound familiar? Americans haven’t evolved nearly as much as we would like to believe we have. We burden the backs of immigrants and slaves, only to turn our own backs on them later. It’s what we do. It’s how the country was built. The style of writing here isn’t my favorite, but the story is superb. Tragic. You find yourself hoping for an end you know won’t come. A very clever, poignant retelling. Timely.
“Men start off good and then the world makes them mean.”
Ain’t that the truth...
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