Whitehead takes us on an unconventional journey through a bleak time of history in the United States. Although he uses the factual backdrop of a period of slave-owning times, he reimagines and creates an alternative landscape in which to tell Cora’s story. Cora, a slave on a plantation in Georgia, is asked by another slave named Caesar to attempt an escape via the Underground Railroad. The factual part of the story resides in the accounts of the violence and inhuman treatment of the slaves at the hands of their owners, the slave-catchers, and all others who have a hatred of black people. Yet, the story veers off into a different world in various ways with the foremost being the fact that the Underground Railroad is here conceived as an actual railroad system built in underground tunnels running from South to North. Additionally, the several stops Cora makes along her travels from station to station and her experiences living in those are not factual to the histories of those places during this time period. Yet, it is within this re-imagined landscape where Whitehead is able to explore and examine various attitudes and treatments that history in a longer period has thrust upon (or attempted to thrust upon) minorities both here and throughout the world. Among these are forced sterilization, genocide, and re-settlement of their “own kind” in certain established areas.
For me, one of the most poignant parts of the book was when we find out what happened to Cora’s mother, herself a runaway slave who escaped when Cora was young. Cora never finds the answer to that mystery and her feelings of abandonment play a big part in the person she becomes. Although the overall narrative highlights the brutality of the slave experience, Whitehead also weaves in the truth that cruelty and kindness are not linked to one’s skin color. We see a hierarchy among the slaves wherein some perpetuate violence within their own ranks, while others go to great lengths to look out for the weak within their own population. Likewise, we have depictions of white owners whose actions make our blood boil, whereas we also see those among the white population who risk their own lives to help those traveling on the underground railroad.
It is difficult to state that a book such as this was a pleasurable or enjoyable read due to the horrific portrayals of violence found within it. Yet, I can say it is definitely a worthwhile read. It can seem a little disjointed in the way the narrative voice switches from person to person and sometimes from time period to time period. But, Whitehead ultimately weaves all these voices in so that at the last disembarkation from the railroad everything has fallen into place.
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Notes from a Book Nerd 