Fiction
2016 Random House Audio
Read by Bahni Turpin
Finished on March 1, 2021
Rating: 2/5 (Fair)
Publisher's Blurb:
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
I have now read two novels written by Colson Whitehead and I don't think I'll read any more. My book group chose The Underground Railroad for our March discussion and I decided to listen to the audio since it's read by the wonderful Bahni Turpin. Turpin's narration is fine, but I never felt like I knew Cora or any of the other characters, for that matter. It took me a long time to get interested in Cora's story, but once I did there would suddenly be the introduction of new characters or locations, which was jarring and confusing. I was never fully engrossed in the book and often found my mind wandering as I walked while listening to the audio.
Judging from the high ratings by my friends on Goodreads, I am undoubtedly in the minority, although a few readers have shared my thoughts, claiming the book lacks emotion, is distant and impersonal. Will I watch the ten-episode limited series when it hits Amazon Prime on May 14th? Possibly. Maybe this will be one of those rare instances when the movie is better than the book.
Click here for my review of The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.
