The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yes, Whitehead is a great writer. Yes, this novel is important because it recounts the atrocities this country has committed to people of color. I think when I read it was a science fiction take on the underground railroad, I was hoping for a bit more metaphor and a bit more hope than what I felt this take offered. Yes, the underground railroad in this book is an actual railroad under the ground--but it leads only to different spectacles of horror--eugenics, "historical" tourism, extermination orders, vigilantes,etc. While taken to extremes in cases, all of these scenarios existed in our past (and in some ways now) so it is a truthful and powerful novel in that way. However, its relentlessness made it hard to read much at a time.

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Sometimes such an experience bound one person to another; just as often the shame of one's powerlessness made all witnesses into enemies.

When the slaves finished, they had stripped the fields of their color.  It was a magnificent operation, from seed to bale, but not one of them could be prideful of their labor.  It had been stolen from them.

In death the negro became a human being.  Only then was he the white man's equal.

If Tennessee had a temperament, it took after the dark personality of the world with a taste for arbitrary punishment.