Colson Whitehead's novel The Underground Railroad (#614) has generated a lot of buzz and admiration. Permit me to be politically incorrect and say that I did not like this book. It's a quasi-fantasy since in this book the underground railroad is a glorified secret subway system built across the South. The plot seems to jump forward and backward in historical time to suit the points the author wishes to make. There are, of course, countless gruesome atrocities described here. In light of the rest of the book, are they exaggerated? Maybe. Maybe not.
Different characters are given their own sections of the novel, explaining their motivations for their actions in the main plot: the plight of Cora, the runaway slave who killed a white boy in making her escape from a Georgia plantation. The device was distracting and interrupted the flow of the action. I wanted to know what happened to Cora, one of the few characters I could care about.
Just when it seems that Cora has found a refuge where she can safely settle down, something happens to destroy her peace of mind. Ridgeway, a persistent slave hunter hired by her owner repeatedly catches up with her and twice heads back to the plantation to return her. It made me distrust the end of the book when she has yet again appeared to gain her freedom. It all felt very circular; the story really never went anywhere. It's probably meant to be a metaphor for a slave's life. If that is pointless, as far as I'm concerned, so was reading this book.
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