「地下鉄道」(The Ｕnderground Ｒailroad 朴裕河 「引き揚げ」

「地下鉄道」(The Ｕnderground Ｒailroad.コリソン、ホワイトヘッド著　2016. ハヤカワ文庫) は、1830年ごろ(日本では天保年間、飢饉に苦しむ人たちが百姓一揆や打ち壊しをしていた頃、ペリーが浦賀に来る20年ほど前。そしてアメリカでは南北戦争の30年ほど前) アメリカ南部ジョージア州の綿ばたけから、コーラという少女が逃げる。彼女はアフリカから拉致されて来た女性の孫娘。過酷な労働、農場主や奴隷頭による鞭打ちや、気まぐれな殺人。その中でコーラは唯一自分のものと思える小さな野菜畑を守ろうとする。それは「自分」を持つことだつた。、
逃亡奴隷を助ける組織、文字通りの地下鉄道を通ってサウスカロライナへ。そこでは逃亡奴隷の寮があり、文字を教える、しかし一方では黒人が増えないように手術がおこなわれる。ふたたび逃げるコーラ。、、、彼女を匿ったり逃亡を助けたりする白人も容赦なく殺される。
奴隷制度の理不尽さとともに、ヨーロッパから自由と豊かさを求めて新大陸に来た者たちが、原住民を殲滅して土地を奪って行ったことも振り返られる。アメリカという国は存在していいのか？
この本はピューリッツァ賞をはじめ多くの賞を受賞した。

日本でも、まず北海道、台湾、朝鮮、「満州」へと、たくさんの人が渡った。それは国策であるとともに、土地なき民が土地を持つため、また一攫千金を狙ってのことだつた。

彼らは日本の敗戦後、日本に「引き揚げ」る。引き揚げの過程での過酷な経験は「流れる星は生きている」を初めとして多く語られ。読者の同情を呼び起こす。

しかし、それまで   その地で彼らがどう生きたかは、ほとんど語られていない。

朴裕河は、そのことをこそ、語るべきではないか、と問う。

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The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad

by Colson Whitehead (Goodreads Author)

 4.05  ·   Rating details ·  345,839 ratings  ·  28,406 reviews

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. (less)

Popular Answered Questions

Does anyone like that the author wrote the railroad as a physical, operating one? I felt it unnecessary and beyond the scope of possibility.

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Cara This is a work of fiction, not historical fiction. North and South Carolina didn't have the political structure described in the book. Whitehead is us…more

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Does it depict much violence?

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Jim Yes. Violence was an integral part of slavery.

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Felice Laverne

Jun 10, 2016Felice Laverne rated it liked it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: lit-fic, netgalley, reviewed-on-amazon, african-american-fiction, 4-reread, read-2016, reviewed-on-barnesandnoble, cultural-surveys, full-review, historical-fiction

3.5 stars

“All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man.”

I was really looking forward to this read! I had an interesting relationship with The Intuitionist, having read it in college and not quite grasped it then came back to it later and enjoyed it more. I love everything that Colson Whitehead is about (and I hope to read Zone One soon), but this particular foray into his work turned out to be a little less than a love affair for me.

The Underground Railroad starts on the Randall plantation in Georgia around 1812. This plantation is an amalgamation of every horror and tragedy you’ve ever heard of about slavery. Slaves are beaten and raped for amusement, even on display for the entertainment of guests sipping lemonade; attempts at fleeing from bondage or bucking the system are (often arbitrarily) met with public displays of execution, from being strung up and castrated to a good ole-fashioned tarring and feathering. Life on the plantation is as rough for women—who are used as breeders for more slaves, hence more money, and are constantly at the mercy of male appetites, both from those in the ivory tower and those in the fields—as it is for the laboring men. In the midst of it all, Cora, a stray who’s gained a bit of a scarlet letter because her mother fled the plantation and left her behind years back, starts her long journey to freedom one quiet night with nothing but a sack of unripe turnips, two companions and the North Star as their guide. But the untold horrors that she will face ahead of her on this trek will sometimes rival those that she left behind. With a bounty on her head and dreams of education and freedom beckoning her forward, she will stop through a slew of Southern states—all with their own systems of Southern justice and oppression—and find herself on Whitehead’s re-envisaged Underground Railroad.

Within these pages, you’ll embark on a re-imagined historical truth that could only be a creation of Colson Whitehead. Here, the Underground Railroad is—get this—an actual train (or a single, rickety locomotive, but you get the point), complete with a conductor. At times that term is more allegorical than actual, but even the conductors have their own pasts that, at times, ensnare Cora in their trap-like grasp. Human sterilization to control the growth of the Negro population (which, in some states, "problematically" rivals the numbers of the white population), blackface, and the Tuskegee Project are all touched on here, are all experienced by our heroine in some periphery of her journey.

Those are the goodie takeaways.

Now for my qualms. This novel would’ve been better served being written in first person, for Cora’s chapters at the very least. This is a harrowing journey, a terrifying trek into the unknown for a young woman who has never been outside of the confines of the Randall Plantation for her entire life. She’s never worked for her own wages, never bought her own new dress, never even been to see a doctor. We want to see, touch and taste every moment of what she feels. We want to quiver when she quivers and scream when she hurts. We want to experience these truths re-imagined for ourselves, because this is a remarkable journey set in a harrowing past that our country would rather keep hushed and obscured. To truly break us out of this—to truly immerse us in this and better make the point that Whitehead sought to make—we should’ve been squarely in Cora’s shoes, not watching her from above in a slightly removed, vaguely clinical 3rd person.

While Whitehead’s intellectualism serves his plots well, it doesn’t do the greatest wonders for soulful and immersive execution. Perhaps that comes down to being a matter of personal preference. I found his writing style, as was the case in his The Intuitionist as well, to be talented but, yes, just a tad by the way of clinician. And finesse—oh, finesse, thou art an allusive thing! Honestly, there wasn’t a lot of it here, and by that I mean that this was quite the bull-ride read: jerky and rough. I had to re-read several passages, because segues from one event to the next were often non-existent. Suddenly, you were in a saloon, or in the middle of an attack by rogue outlaws, then learning letters in a schoolhouse. Literally, a person could go from alive to dead in a single, four-sentence paragraph! Um, what?? (Shaking head vigorously.) What just happened now?

Also, I could’ve done without the backstory chapters of the minor characters. Every single one of those “let-me-elaborate-on-this-(minor)-character’s-past-life” chapters could’ve been gutted from this manuscript—all except for one. And that one you’ll know when you read it.

Still, Colson Whitehead managed to touch on the justifications and absolutions that the antebellum South description whispered to themselves at night to justify their actions, biblical references that laid the way for Manifest Destiny and all the other gluttonous rationalizations that makes slavery possible, in any land, in any era. And for that, I applauded him.

The story itself was great—a truly epic adventure—but the pace at which it jerked, sometimes lullingly slow and others at whiplash-inducing speeds, turned me off. And, I have to say, any novel where I feel even the slightest urge to skim and skip ahead can never get 4 stars from me. But his work is definitely unique in its own right, and for that I would absolutely recommend this novel to anyone who has read the blurb and marked it as to-read, to anyone who’s already familiar with Whitehead’s talents and appreciated them, and for those who have yet to become familiar with them. I have a deep respect for this author; the style just didn’t work for me the way I’d hoped this time, and for that I award 3.5 stars ***

I received an advance-read copy of this novel from the publisher, Doubleday, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Emily May

Jul 26, 2016Emily May rated it it was ok  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: arc, modern-lit, historical, 2016

This is my first read by Colson Whitehead and it makes me think his style may not be to my tastes.

It's personal preference, I'm sure. There are some beautiful sentences, some genius structural choices, and many great ideas. Indeed, the re-imagining of history where the Underground Railroad is an actual railroad is a great idea in itself. I just found it lacking in emotion. It's a cold, distant, impersonal novel and it didn't pull me in.

All of the secondary characters are undeveloped and forgettable, but more than this, Cora herself wasn't given enough personality and development to really drag me into her world. The other central character - Caesar - is even less developed. Perhaps a first-person narrative would have better suited the subject matter and helped warm us to the characters.

In this story, Cora and Caesar are slaves at the Randall estate in Georgia. Caesar proposes an escape via the Underground Railroad, which Cora initially refuses, but later agrees to when her situation becomes more dire. The book is full of monstrous things, but the impersonal nature of the narrative kept me at a distance. It was horrific, as the truth of U.S. history often is, but in the way a history textbook is horrific. We should have been right there in the middle of the story with Cora, hearts pounding in fear, and yet I felt somewhat removed, reading - it seemed - an almost clinical account of history.

The jerky structure that jumps from the main plot to some backstory and back again doesn't make it any easier to become invested. With no emotional connection to the characters and little opportunity to become connected to the plot, I felt like this book, for me, remained one full of clever ideas and little else.

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Roxane

Aug 15, 2016Roxane rated it really liked it

Excellent writing, strong concept. I am personally burnt out on slavery narratives so I cannot say this was a pleasure to read. So much unrelenting horror. Whitehead does an excellent job of portraying slavery and America as a slave nation. The idea of the underground railroad, as an actual railroad, is so smart and interesting. I wish he had actually done more with the railroad itself. There were some sentences where I thought, "Now you are just showing off." The amount of research the author did is clear, throughout. There is some really interesting structural work at play. I wanted some of the secondary characters to be more fully developed. This book is going to do very well, and rightly so. (less)

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Trish

Jul 12, 2016Trish rated it did not like it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: race, fiction, america, historical-novel

For nearly twenty years the work of Colson Whitehead has been published to wide acclaim, his fiction and nonfiction both receiving many accolades. For this reason I was eager to have the chance to read his new novel that focused on the origination of the race debate in America—slavery. This new novel is due out September 13, 2016. Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for the opportunity to read an e-galley.

The story centers around Cora, a motherless slave living on the Randall estate in Georgia. When another slave, Caesar, suggests they attempt an escape, Cora initially demurs…until she draws unwanted sexual attentions from her owner.

The problems with this novel are not in the motivations. Those we understand. The problems are technical: an insufficiently developed Cora, and a mere silhouette of Caesar, the two central characters. When Caesar practically disappears from the narrative one-third of the way in, we barely notice, he was so inconsequential and underdeveloped. Talk about exploitation: he was simply a device.

But this is fiction, and the author can do whatever he wants, like create an actual underground railroad to eliminate the pesky problem of researching and charting a perilous journey to innumerable secret above-ground destinations that would allow us to picture and relive the terror, the deprivation, and the strength of character of all participants in the movement of hunted individuals within a dangerous environment. When the author suggests that white community members in South Carolina at this time were encouraging scientific experiments on, and recommending sterilizations for, freed black men and women, we don’t trust it and are annoyed that we are going to have to do our own research to verify the (outrageous if false) claim in the fictional narrative.

Problems of language are also present here, with untenable and frankly unbelievable hectoring challenges from Cora to her white rescuers along the trail: “You feel like a slave?…Born to it, like a slave?” …and Cora’s challenge to Ridgeway, the homicidal slave catcher, after a chatty exchange: “More words to pretty things up.” When Cora idly wonders whether a new wave of immigrants will replace the Irish, “fleeing a different but no less abject country” we are startled. Where did that come from and why would Cora have any knowledge of, or any particular interest in, conditions in Ireland or anywhere else, for that matter? It just isn’t reasonable and seems out of place.

Then we have the awkwardness of the language: “Cora kept her tongue,” and “Over the years life on Orchard Street passed with a tedium that eventually congealed into comfort,” or “The game of husband and wife was even less fun than she supposed. Jane, at least, turned out to be an unexpected mercy, a tidy bouquet in her arms, even if conception proved yet another humiliation.” These exceptionally ugly, charmless, and clichéd constructions add nothing to our pleasure.

Finally, there is no momentum in this novel. The storyline is broken into chunks that attempt to explain the backstory of some character or another or tell the story of a stop on Cora’s trail to freedom. Each break draws us further and further from any interest in Cora’s forward progress. It seems she (and we) will never get there.

I have seen the glowing reviews for this title, so take my criticisms as one among many. This would not be the title you should expect will give you a rich understanding of the real underground railroad for escaped slaves. For that we will have to look elsewhere. (less)

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Rick Riordan

Dec 14, 2021Rick Riordan added it

I loved Colson Whitehead's take on the zombie apocalypse, Zone One, so I wanted to see what he did with this novel, a sort of alternate history of pre-Civil War America in which the Underground Railroad, a loosely organized system which tried to help enslaved Blacks reach free states, was a *literal* railroad underground.

The power of the book is that the realities of slavery are interwoven so well with believable fictions, that even a reader like me, who knows a fair amount of history, finds it difficult to distinguish where history stops and fantasy begins. Every child in school, upon first hearing the term 'Underground Railroad,' probably pictures exactly what Whitehead has written: an actual system of trains running through secret tunnels from the South to the North. I know I did when I was in second grade. To see that idea brought to life is fascinating and surprisingly credible. When our protagonist Cora first sees one of the tunnels and asked who built it, her station master replies, "Who builds anything in America?" Black laborers, of course. The answer seems so obvious that I found it easy to believe in this impossible railway, with trains traveling thousands of miles underground, delivering their fugitive passengers to new stations that may (or may not) be safer. By the end of the book, it becomes clear that the blending of fantasy and history is one central message of the book: Which is more difficult to believe -- that the institution of slavery was built on so much horror and moral rot (true and well-documented) or that North Carolina banned the presence of all Blacks of its own accord before the Civil War in order to prevent uprisings? (totally untrue, but entirely plausible.) Fantasy is no stranger or more sinister than what actually happened in this country, an idea summed up nicely toward the end of the book, when the orator Landers talks about America as a shared delusion. It should not exist. And yet here we are.

As for the plot: our protagonist Cora was born on a Georgia plantation and abandoned as a child by her mother, who was the only person ever to successfully escape the Randall family. When a new arrival named Caesar confides in Cora that he is planning to escape, and wants to take Cora as a 'good luck charm,' Cora initially refuses. Then conditions on the plantation turn even more horrible, and she takes the chance of riding on the Underground Railroad.

We follow Cora's journeys from station to station, state to state, as she searches for freedom and also the fate of her vanished mother, all while being pursued by the vile but wonderfully three-dimensional slave catcher Ridgeway, Cora's personal nemesis. Each state offers new promises and new terrors -- some overt, some hidden -- which challenge Cora to determine when 'safe' is safe enough for a fugitive enslaved Black. Strangely, the book reminded me of Watership Down, in that it is a perilous journey to find a home, with many dangerous false sanctuaries along the way. It was not an easy book to read, but beautifully written, thought-provoking and compelling. (less)

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Matthew

Nov 01, 2016Matthew rated it did not like it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, gr_awards_2016, historical-fiction, least-favorite, audio, library

Every year, I have either never heard of the films nominated for the Best Picture Academy award or when I see them, I don’t think the movie is all that great; long drawn out scenes with landscapes, close ups of glowering faces, monotonous dialogue, etc. I know that every movie doesn’t have to be action packed, but forced artsy-ness or movies nominated for content but not quality are frustrating.

The Underground Railroad won the Pulitzer Prize this year. I have read other Pulitzer Prize winners and generally I have found them to be just okay. Or, in looking through the list of winners, I have not even heard of them at all. Because of this, Pulitzer Prize and Best Picture Awards are very similar to me. I really am not sure what the ultimate criteria ends up being, but apparently it is not criteria that I would use.

Disclaimer – as you can probably tell already, I did not like this book. That does not mean that I wish to convince you that you should not like it or not read it. It does not mean that if you gave it 5 stars I want to fight about it. All it means is that this book just did not work for me and I cannot tell why it was so great. We can discuss our differences in opinion, but there will be no need to argue!

I am stuck between 1 and 2 stars on this book. If there was a half star option, I would move forward with a 1.5 star rating. By the time I am done typing this review, maybe I will be able to settle on which one I will go with.

I listened to the audiobook. I always have an audiobook going on and this is the first time in a long time that I can remember fighting to maintain interest and pay attention to the story (in fact, I think the last time that happened was with All the Light We Cannot See – another Pulitzer Prize winner). With this being the case, at least one star from 5 has to be removed.

The characters and the story for me were just blah. I have read other stories and books with difficult subject matter about people being oppressed. In those books the characters were charismatic and impassioned. You felt for the characters and their plight. The story is enthralling and you care about what happens and the ultimate outcome of the story. (Some examples of this are The Help, Between Shades of Gray, The Power of One, etc.). With The Underground Railroad the story was fairly flat for me and the characters kind of uninteresting – reading about what they were going through was more like a bland history book than a story meant to entertain and draw emotion. Considering the subject matter, this was rather unfortunate to me. Also, there was lots of time jumping so I was frequently confused about what was happening, to whom, and in what time frame - this probably led to the fight to stay interested. With this being the case, another star has been removed, bringing us to 3.

The book is called The Underground Railroad. I thought that this was going to be about The Underground Railroad. Instead, the railroad is just a bit part in the main story (view spoiler). I know that an author can name a book anything they want, but this name seemed to point toward a very specific plot point that ended up being minor throughout – and that felt weird to me. The best analogy I can think of is if all the Harry Potter books had his name replaced with “Hogsmeade” in all the titles. While Hogsmeade is a place they go in every book, and sometimes important things happen there, it is hardly the most important location in the book, so why would you put it in the title? With this being the case, another star has been removed, bringing us to 2.

(Side note on the "Railroad" itself. Seemed like a bit of Magical-Realism that to me felt forced and out of line with the rest of the book. For me, the author was trying too hard for the literal metaphor.)

I know it probably seems like I am being harsh on this book, but it won awards! It was Oprah’s Book Club pick! The subject matter is in a genre that I have read other captivating books from and was led to believe this one would be right up there with them. My Goodreads friends have consistently been giving it high marks. I was expecting a big payoff! I was expecting to be moved to tears! I was expecting to be first in line when they make this into a movie! But . . . none of this happened. I cannot tell why it won awards. I am not sure why my friends give it high praise. I cannot put this up there with other books I have read with similar subject matter. And, I will not go see this if they make it into a movie. With this being the case, another star has been removed, bringing us to 1.

So, 1 star . . . that’s it for me. I hope that you enjoyed it, and I don’t discourage others from trying it, but I cannot recommend it or go higher with my rating. (less)

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Will Byrnes

Jun 29, 2017Will Byrnes rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-of-the-year-2016, historical-fiction, fiction

What a world, Cora thought, that makes a living prison into your only haven. Was she out of bondage or in its web: how to describe the status of a runaway? Freedom was a thing that shifted as you looked at it, the way a forest is dense with trees up close, but from outside, from the empty meadow, you see its true limits. Being free had nothing to do with chains or how much space you had. On the plantation she was not free, but she moved unrestricted on its acres, tasting the air and tracing the summer stars. The place was big in its smallness. Here, she was free of her master but slunk around a warren so tiny she couldn’t stand. - Colson Whitehead

People get ready, there’s a train a-coming - Curtis Mayfield

In Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Underground Railroad, he takes a figurative term and gives it a literal application. This Underground Railroad posits a literal brick, steel, and steam system that transports fleeing slaves from southern captivity to what is hoped to be a form of freedom. This RR has actual station agents and train conductors. Most importantly, it has passengers.

description

Image from Whitehead’s Twitter feed

Our guide through this underworld is Cora, 17 when we meet her, a slave on the Randalls’ property, in Georgia. Encouraged to flee with him by fellow slave, Caesar, she demurs, fearing failure and dire circumstances. But when her situation at the property becomes too damaging to endure, she signs on.

Throughout the tale, we get bits of backstory. We learn of Cora’s mother, a slave who had fled when Cora was 11, never to be seen or heard from again. We learn some details of slave life. That brutality was a central feature will come as no surprise to anyone, but some of the specifics of such an existence will be news to many of us.

The book had a particularly long gestation.

I had the idea for the book about 16 years ago, recalling how when I was a kid, I thought the Underground Railroad was a literal railroad and when I found out it wasn’t, I was disappointed. So I thought it was a cool idea, and then I thought, “Well, what if it actually was a real railroad? That seems like a cool premise for a book.”  But I had just finished up a research-heavy project and wasn’t up for that kind of ordeal again, and I didn’t feel mature enough or up to the task. But every couple of years, when I was between books, I would pull out my notes and ask myself if I was ready. And inevitably I would realize that I wasn’t really up for it. It wasn’t until about two years ago that I really committed to the idea. - from the Bookpage interview

There is much here that hearkens back to literary classics. Cora might certainly feel a kinship with Jean Valjean of Les Miserables, escaping a wretched life, but pursued by a relentless, Javert-like slave catcher, Arnold Ridgeway. Ridgeway had been enraged for years that he’d failed to find and bring back Cora’s mother, Mabel, who had fled six years earlier. One might also think of stories like Gulliver’s Travels, in which each stop along the journey points out another form of madness.

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Colson Whitehead - image from the NY Times

The route takes Cora from Georgia to what seems a relatively benign South Carolina, then on to North Carolina for some new forms of horror, and finally on to Indiana, which offers its own forms of misery. Whitehead is not shy about part of his plan. I thought, why not write a book that really scares you?

Whitehead was more interested in communicating the internal rather than external historical reality.

The first chapter in Georgia I tried to make realistic and stick to the historical record, and then after that, I wanted to stick to the truth of the black experience but not necessarily the facts. As we go to South Carolina and Indiana and the different states that Cora goes to, I am playing with history and time, moving things up to talk about the Holocaust, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and the eugenics movement. So in some sense, it’s not really a historical novel at all because I’m moving things around. - from the Bookpage interview

Whitehead peppers Cora’s story with bizarre events, like regular public lynchings in one town, an early and bitingly grim version of public entertainment, reminiscent of feeding Christians to lions for the delight of the townspeople. A living history museum in which Cora plays the part of slaves through history in diverse tableaux makes your spidey senses wonder what might result.

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Thuso Mbed as Cora in the film - image from IMDB

Whitehead took his inspiration from diverse sources. Cora spend a protracted time in an attic, terrified of being discovered, and with good reason, as public lynchings are regularly held right across the street in a public park. The inspiration for that was Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, in which Harriet hid for years in a crawl space, terrified of being captured.

Primarily I read slave narratives. There are a few histories of the Underground Railroad; one of the first ones I read, which proved the most useful was Bound for Canaan by Fergus Bordewich. That gave me an overview of the railroad, but the main thing was just reading the words of former slaves themselves. - from the Bookpage interview

It would be a challenge to remain unmoved by Cora’s journey, and impossible to come away from reading this book without learning some things about the slave experience and the conditions that people treated as property endured.

One may take issue with decisions made by this or that person in the story, but it is worth suspending a bit of disbelief to appreciate the journey on which Whitehead leads us. No one will force you to read The Underground Railroad, but choosing to do so would be an excellent expression of your freedom.

Review first posted – June 20, 2017

Publication date – August 2, 2016

The mini-series was released on Prime in May 2021

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s personal and Twitter pages

August 2, 2016 – NY Times - Colson Whitehead on Slavery, Success and Writing the Novel That Really Scared Him

- by Jennifer Schuessler

INTERVIEWS

-----Oprah’s interview with CW requires tolerating it having been broken down into very small chunks, each with a 15 second ad that repeats for each section, which is scream-inducing

----- Oprah, American history and the power of a female protagonist - Bookpage.com – by Stephanie Harrison

SONGS

-----Follow the Drinking Gourd

-----Go Down Moses

-----The Gospel Train

----- People Get Ready

-----Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

-----Wade in the Water (less)

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Elyse  Walters

Apr 22, 2017Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

Shelves: african-american-lit, race-issues, award-nomine-or-winner

I came to this book with some resistance, regardless of it being the Pulitzer Prize winner for 2017.

I've owned the physical book since last year. It kept being easier to read something else.

I felt it was my duty to read this book.

But wait.....

Haven't I done my duty?

I've read three James Baldwin books 'this' year....I've seen the movie "12 Years a Slave", and "Birth of a Nation".

I've read "Beloved" by Toni Morrison, "The Kitchen House", by Kathleen Grissom, "Between The World And Me", by Ta-Nehisi Coates, etc.

Still needed to do my duty!!!

My expectations going into this book were LOW. I saw more 3-stars and 'under' until 'recently'. The very first few reviews I saw last year had 'negative' things to say about this book. I thought .... "great, one less painful book for me to experience"!

And then......something happened- I read a VERY MOVING 5 star review by *Julie

Christine Johnson*......that seriously stayed with me. I knew it was time to read this book soon.

STILL with some resistance ---BUT...I knew I believed whole heartedly in everything I read in Julie's review. This was a case where reading reviews- low & high... WAS SUPPORTIVE to me BEFORE I read the book. NONE of the reviews spoiled my own reading.

I HIGHLY-HIGHLY RECOMMEND READING MANY REVIEWS- HIGH - LOW- MIDDLE - and DNF....if on the fence about reading "The Underground Railroad".

Given my expectations started out LOW .. I was pleasantly happy to discover I enjoyed reading this book much more than I thought. At the same time, I tend to agree with some of the low reviews, and some of the high reviews.

In Navidad Thelamour's review, she says: "The novel would've been better served being written in first person, for Cora's chapters at the 'very' least". I AGREE WITH HER!! ......I think - as the reader - we might have FELT what she was experiencing MUCH MORE ... if we felt as if she were speaking to us. It might have been even 'more' unbearable to read though.

I was especially inspired by Poingu's review.

She says: "I finished utterly exhilarated. This novel is a triumphant act of imagination". I AGREE!!!!!

However, Poingu goes on to mention something she did not like.

Poingu says: "There were too many characters to superficially drawn; sometimes I felt there was too much narrative summary; the bad guys trended toward evil caricatures rather than multidimensional people; there was an odd distancing effect between the reader and any one character because there is so little offered of each characters interior thinking". I ALSO AGREE!!!!!!

I could never have put that sentence together so eloquently as Poingu. - thank you, Poingu!

I 'stopped ' trying to remember all the minor characters. There were TONS!!! Almost TOO MANY!

However-like Poingu, .... SHE LOVED READING THIS BOOK. I did too!!! So, for me, I didn't worry about the minor flaws. Or all the minor characters . It was the greater context which I was taking in.

I ended up being blown away by the powerful allegory of the Underground Railroad... the crafting of this story played with 'my imagination'.

Very clever creative structure. We get to keep dancing in imaginary visuals of being - on a train - a real train with conductors- but then are jolted by horrifying beatings, lynchings staged like a theater production, rapes, and brutal truths from state to state . Everything about slavery was so terrifying--that by the end this novel, I was left with the incredible achievement "The Underground Railroad" is.

Cora is on the run from Arnold Ridgeway - the master slave catcher ( she didn't know she was on the run when she first learned about FREE NORTH, that Caesar told her about). Things are not as easy as 'free'.

From South Carolina, to North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, on to 'the north'....at every step of the way... there is terror, hatred, atrocity, gruesome repulsion.

The descriptions are horrific. Its hard to be with SO MUCH VIOLENCE!

However, the brutal honesty lights a fire in us. We DO NOT WANT TO EVER ALLOW HISTORY TO REPEAT ITSELF.... so yes, we I'm glad I read this book. Even with some minor flaws --- I can't give this novel less than 5 stars.

I'm sad - sorry - angry and ashamed- for all the horrific sufferings in our past history over racial inequality!

At the same time --I'm left with hope - strength- and our humanity.

Brutal and Beautiful Book! .....I hope they make a movie.... I think the impact would be powerful.

There are some great interviews of Colson Whitehead. He is such a humble and wonderful man! Worth looking up! (less)

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Jim Fonseca

Apr 26, 2017Jim Fonseca rated it really liked it

Shelves: american-authors

A good read and Pulitzer Prize winner, with so many reviews already, I’ll make this brief.

The main character is a young woman slave who hates her missing mother for having escaped when she was a child. A young man plans to escape from the Georgia plantation and invites her to go with him, partly because he thinks she’s “good luck” because of her mother’s escape. The main story becomes one of a cat and mouse game with a brutal slave hunter on their tail. There is a “real” underground railroad running in tunnels.

description

While on the run and at times masquerading as a freewoman, she has a variety of experiences designed to give us a view into slave life at the time (say the early 1800’s). After her early life picking cotton and the escape, she works with forged papers as a maid to white folks in Charleston; as an African at a “living exhibit” at a good-intentioned museum; and she hides in an attic for months. As a female slave she has it worse than a man because she is constantly vulnerable to sexual abuse from whites and blacks as she makes her way from Georgia to both Carolinas, Tennessee and eventually Indiana.

The story portrays the catalog of abuses that blacks were vulnerable to – all the daily abuses and even the killings of slaves. But it’s not just the story of brutal work and evil slave masters, but the hunting down of freed slaves; the lies of masters who promised freedom and then reneged; the duplicity of white doctors performing eugenic experiments on unknowing blacks; the constant worry about broken families – and not just parents worrying about the fate of children stolen from them, but children worrying about the whereabouts and fate of parents now getting elderly. There is even an attack by whites on a free black settlement in the North.

I think this is a great addition to the collection of books about American slavery, especially for young people, who have not read, and probably never will read, old classics such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

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Angela M

Mar 30, 2016Angela M rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: edelweiss-reviews

3.5 stars rounded up.

This is a difficult book to read with the horrific treatment and gruesome punishments of African American slaves so much a part of the narrative, but it is essential that we read this and other books like it . We need these powerful, compelling and gut wrenching reminders of what life was like on a plantation in Georgia and other places in the South and what it might have been like to be a runaway. This story is told mainly from the perspective of a young slave woman named Cora and the portrayal of her escape and journey toward freedom. I was also moved by the story of Cora's grandmother Ajarry, captured in Africa and transported to America. Cora's mother Mabel also has her story.

Colson Whitehead imagines the The Underground Railroad as if it were an actual railroad with trains and conductors. While this work is a fictional representation of the time and place and does an excellent job of conveying the time and place and what seems like a genuine feeling of what it was like to be Cora, I have to admit I had some reservations about making it a real railroad. I felt like the creation of an actual railroad in a way diminishes the the true Underground Railroad whose strength was the people moving people to freedom not a railway but a network of routes and a group of people who didn't have a railroad to move them around . I'm sure there will be much discussion of this and I may be an outlier here.

So for this and the fact that I found it a little slow going and just had too many characters, I would rate this 3.5 stars if half stars were allowed . But overall , this is just such an important book that I have to round it up to 4 stars . Cora's story is one that we mustn't forget because she represents so many of the real life slaves who we have to remember.

Thanks to Doubleday and Edelweiss. (less)

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Michael Finocchiaro

Apr 11, 2017Michael Finocchiaro rated it liked it

Shelves: pulitzer-fiction, novels, john_dos_passos_prize, carnegie-medal-winner, national-book-award, american-21st-c, pulitzer-winning-fiction, fiction

The Underground Railroad is an intense ride. I had not taken "railroad" to be a literal thing before reading the book. Like Cora, the protagonist, I thought it was just an informal way of smuggling escaped slaves up north. Now, I am curious to visit some of the stations should they still exist.

The book itself is one of courage, brutality, and hope. It is a condemnation of the despicable crime against humanity that was slavery (and I have ancestors that were guilty of that unforgivable iniquity) with vivid, terrifying depictions of the violence that kept the institution going. It was also sad to see that the white hate of black skin went as far north as Indiana - but then, no, is was unsurprising at the same time. It made me reflect on the current rehabilitation of racism in Drumpf's America and how little so much of the white population has really learned from this shameful past.

I am not sure that this book is on the level of other Pulitzers: despite the vivid characters and fast-paced action, I felt the pace was uneven and the descriptions a little lacking. Nonetheless, it was an important read and a moving one. I just wonder if we will ever have an accounting of the number of horrible deaths that transpired, the number that got away like Cora, and the ones that didn't. (less)

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Justin

Feb 21, 2017Justin rated it it was ok

I'm a guy who enjoys "best of" lists. One of my favorite things about December, besides my birthday, Christmas, football, colder weather, and hot chocolate, is sitting down to peruse lists of the best stuff of the year. Books, movies, albums, video games, etc. I love it. I have trusted sources that I rely on to provide my with the best of the best, and when I start to see the same stuff appear on very list, I drop everything and consume it.

Like right now I'm watching The Americans because Season 4 was consistently ranked as one of the best shows on TV last year. I watched La La Land and Manchester by the Sea because they were the two two movies on almost every list out there for 2016. Beyoncé's Lemonade album is awesome, too. And The new stuff from Radiohead.

But my fascination with lists doesn't necessarily mean I'm always consuming the best media in the entire world because it's so universally critically acclaimed. Sometimes a movie is just awful no matter what the experts say. Sometimes an album just doesn't do it for me no matter how many times I try to listen to it. And sometimes a book just doesn't win me over like it does others. That's all really great though. It's awesome. It's what makes us human and different and all that. We get to have different opinions and stuff can resonate with us in ways that others will never comprehend. It's beautiful.

The Underground Railroad just didn't do it for me. It was a tough book to read for many reasons. I mean the subject matter is just awful anyway. The fact that people were ever treated that way is disgusting and hard for me to even comprehend. The depictions in the book of cruelty were difficult to read since they were fiction rooted in real events. The concept of a real Underground Railroad was interesting, too, and put a unique spin on historical events.

I just didn't think it was written very well. I didn't think the characters were developed at all so I found myself completely unattached from them. I didn't even realize one of them was out of the picture until they were brought up later in the book. I just didn't connect. I feel like the events that unfolded would have impacted me more if the characters weren't so underdeveloped. It just seemed like there were a lot of things happening, but I wasn't invested from the beginning and couldn't find my way in as I went along.

So I was let down by what many consider the best book of 2016. That's OK. There's a million other books to get wrapped up, and many other books that I think deal with this time in history in a more meaningful way. I'm glad I read it though. It did provide me with a harsh reminder of a dark time in our country's history that is often easy to just shy away from or ignore. It was helpful, and I wanted to rate it higher, but I'm good with two stars.

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Lori

Aug 07, 2016Lori rated it it was ok  ·  review of another edition

I struggled through this... several times thinking of giving up. As a story revolving around such a 'heavy' subject the focus needed to be on a character less one dimensional and just a little bit likable. Cora was not a character that made me feel anything... there was no depth to her. Also, I disliked the whole idea of the Underground Railroad being an actual physical railroad which made no sense to me. Almost made it somewhat cartoonish. It would've been somewhat redeemable if there had been an Authors Note explaining reasons for the choices he made. I had really high expectations for this the minute I saw it on Netgalley, but it really didn't work for me. Hugely, disappointing. Sadly, only 2 stars and that is being generous. (less)

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Hannah Greendale

Feb 18, 2017Hannah Greendale rated it it was amazing

Shelves: pulitzer-prize-nominee, historical-fiction, booker-prize-nominee, best-of-the-year, national-book-award-nominee, adult, fiction, national-book-award-winner

Click here to watch a video review of this book on my channel, From Beginning to Bookend.

Cora is a slave at a Georgia plantation in the antebellum South. When a fellow slave tells her about the Underground Railroad, she finds the courage to run for her freedom. Thus begins her odyssey as a runaway slave, where her adventures introduce her to unprecedented horrors and lead her to disheartening realizations.

The Underground Railroad rekindles the discussion and study of slavery. The harsh realities of those dark chapters in American history are presented with brute bluntness but remain eloquent in their presentation. It makes for a strange but savory contrast, to read about something so dreadful yet have it conferred with such sophistication:

The noxious air of the hold, the gloom of confinement, and the screams of those shackled to her contrived to drive [her] to madness. Because of her tender age, her captors did not immediately force their urges on her, but eventually some of the more seasoned mates dragged her from the hold six weeks into the passage.

Sometimes a slave will be lost in a brief eddy of liberation. In the sway of a sudden reverie among the furrows or while untangling the mysteries of an early-morning dream. In the middle of a song on a warm Sunday night. Then it comes, always - the overseer's cry, the call to work, the shadow of the master, the reminder that she is only a human being for a tiny moment across the eternity of her servitude.

Peppered throughout the book are short, engrossing chapters highlighting secondary or even tertiary characters, but the main point of focus is Cora, a sympathetic character if ever there was one. Cora only knows one life, and it is rife with degradation, abuse, and sorrow.

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.

Every step of her journey forces Cora to question whether or not she is still chattel. Freedom - in the purest, truest sense of the word - seems to always remain just beyond her reach.

What a world this is, Cora thought, that makes a living prison into your haven. [. . .] Freedom was a thing that shifted as you looked at it, the way a forest is dense with trees up close but from outside, from the empty meadow, you see its true limits. Being free had nothing to do with chains or how much space you had.

The author chose his timeline well and integrates other interesting and sickening moments in American history. In addition to slavery, The Underground Railroad touches on the surreptitiously induced sterilization of blacks; the secret studies of syphilis, conducted by white doctors on black patients without their knowledge; and the rise in the practice of autopsy and the subsequent need for corpses, which led to grave robbing and the irreverent disposal of deceased black peoples' bodies for scientific study.

The writing is superb throughout. Carefully selected word choices lend themselves to having harsh and long-standing impact on readers.

The stone vault above was white with splashes of red, like blood from a whipping that soaked through a shirt.

He wrung out every possible dollar. When black blood was money, the savvy business man knew to open every vein.

At the auction block they tallied the souls purchased at each auction, and on the plantations the overseers preserved the names of workers in rows of tight cursive. Every name an asset, breathing capitol, profit made flesh.

This book is an accessible read, breezy for the ease of its writing by weighty for the depth of its subject matter. It's no wonder The Underground Railroad won the 2016 National Book Award for fiction. (less)

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Violet wells

Sep 09, 2017Violet wells rated it liked it

Shelves: pulitzer, booker

It must be hard for a writer to create an uneducated character. It’s not really something you can research. Toni Morrison has set the benchmark, an almost impossibly high benchmark. Of late Marilyn Robinson did a good job with Lila. Whitehead evades this challenge principally by giving his central character Cora little if any inner life. Therefore this is a novel principally of surface realities. It’s a narrative of the eye more than the heart. What this means is I never felt I got to know Cora. She was eluding me as energetically as she was trying to elude all her other pursuers. Maybe that was clever on Whitehead’s part; an ingenious irony. Because Cora never stays with anyone for long she never has a faithful sounding board or foil which enables her to dramatise her inner life. She remains very cinematic, an image rather than a sensibility.

There’s something fundamentally unthinkable about the brutal inhumanity of slavery. It beggars belief that educated human beings could treat other human beings with such perverted humiliating abuse. In that respect it’s an historical event that has parallels with the Holocaust. The Holocaust is often used by writers nowadays as the winning template for a thrilling and moving story. In other words the unspeakable, the inconceivable are reduced to everyday terms of reference we all recognise - essentially the good guys running from the bad guys. There is an element of that here too. We get to feel good about ourselves for cheering on Cora and booing the plantation bosses and slave catchers. The Punch and Judy principle of storytelling. For me the success of Twelve Years a Slave was it never strained to entertain. The Underground Railway does try to entertain and the outcome for me was that it was less moving as a result. It’s well written, well plotted and has some memorable visuals but I can’t say anything about it excited me as a novel with all the plaudits this has received surely should have done.

Somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. (less)

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Always Pouting

May 21, 2017Always Pouting rated it really liked it

Cora is a slave on a plantation in Georgia where conditions are especially rough because of the cotton industry. When she was younger her mother left her alone on the plantation and escaped, leaving Cora to fend for herself. Cora eventually becomes an outcast but when a new slave arrives on the plantation, Caesar, he approaches her and asks her to run away from him. The two set out to evade the bounty hunters and restart their lives this time as free people. I really enjoyed a lot of things about this book, especially the writing and Cora. There were just a few things that kept me from feeling like it was amazing though. First the whole thing about the railroad being an actual underground railroad felt unnecessary, maybe I'm just not smart enough to pick up whatever allusion was being made. It kind of made me confused for a second and I started doubting my whole life because I went wait I thought the underground railroad was a metaphor and I had to double check to make sure I wasn't missing something. Also I really didn't care very much about a lot of the back stories especially the one for the bounty hunter, the whole time I kept wishing he would just go away and die already but maybe that was the point, I don't think he's meant to be likable. The last thing was (view spoiler). None of those things were really big enough to take away from the over all enjoyment of the book though. It was really well written and talks about topics that are pretty hard to stomach but these are things we should acknowledge. (less)

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Julie

Oct 21, 2016Julie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: usa-historical, historical-fiction, american-south, read-2016, black-authors, best-of-2016

"I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves," stated First Lady Michelle Obama at this year's Democratic National Convention. Her words seemed to come as a surprise to many, those who had either forgotten or had never known that black hands enslaved by white masters built the iconic edifice of our democracy.

As we come to the end of an extraordinary eight years of the nation's first President of color while witnessing the continued systemic racism that pervades every corner of our collective American culture, as we engage in open, honest dialogue about white privilege, how black lives matter, and denounce the wretched anti-immigrant language spewed by politicians and political candidates, we must also acknowledge and work to overcome the continued ignorance of our nation's darkest and ugliest history- a history that has led us inexorably to the painful circumstance of contemporary racism.

In his breathtaking novel The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead demonstrates the earth-shattering power of an artistic voice to carry the legacy of the past into our now . He takes what we know to be true, but breaks free from the confines of history to create a brilliant work of fiction.

Cora is a young woman enslaved on the Randall cotton plantation in Georgia, like her mother and grandmother before her. She is the voice, the eyes, ears and body by which the reader witnesses and suffers the brutality of slavery- the rape and beatings, the whippings, torture and murder of the men and women who make up her community, however transitory and temporary it is. Cora “had seen men hung from trees and left for buzzards and crows. Women carved open to the bones with the cat-o’-nine-tails. Bodies alive and dead roasted on pyres. Feet cut off to prevent escape and hands cut off to stop theft.”

Cora's mother escaped years earlier, leaving her young daughter—a betrayal and an abandonment that burns deep in Cora's heart. Knowing the horrors that await a captured runaway slave, escape is only a fantasy, until Cora meets Caesar, a new arrival on the plantation. Caesar tells her about about the free north where he once lived and the way out of their imprisonment, by way of an underground railroad. He convinces her to flee, and we as readers are led from the nightmare of plantation life to the heart-stopping tension of escape.

The Underground Railroad takes on a hallucinatory affect, as Whitehead makes literal the metaphorical network of safe houses that ran from the southern United States north into Canada in the 19th century. In reality, it was neither underground nor a railroad, but in this author's vibrant and vital imagination, the underground railroad is an almost faerie tale-like system, complete with stations and conductors hidden just beneath the scorched earth of slavery.

Chapters of Cora and Caesar's escape alternate with the stories of other characters in the world they are fleeing, most notably the slave hunter in pursuit, Ridgeway. Ridgeway tracked but never found Cora's mother, Mabel, and this failure drives him to pursue Cora from state to state in a near-frenzy of diabolical hatred and determination.

The surreal nature of the narrative makes the reality of slavery even more present and vivid. It is hard to grasp, and yet essential that we do, our recent history and how it continues to shape our present. Colson Whitehead has written a bold and terrible, beautiful and mythic novel that will hold you from the opening pages and not release you, even after you come to its end. Highly recommended.

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Diane S ☔

Apr 30, 2016Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Cora, was a young slave on a Georgia plantation when her mother escaped, leaving Cora to the mercy of the other women in the quarters. Despite hiring a notorious slave tracker, she was never found.To say this plantation did not treat its slaves well is an understatement, some of the punishments devised caused me to, skim over them they are that horrific. When a new intelligent black man, a young man whose master had falsely promised to free him on her death, arrives as a new slave on the plantation, he and a series of events will cause them both to flee.

Second book on slavery I have read in a matter of days, and it doesn't get any easier. Will never understand man's cruelty towards others, no matter how much I read. This is a very good book though, and I just loved the character of Cora, she is amazing in so many ways. The underground railroad played an important part in bringing slaves to freedom and the author does something entirely original with this concept. A touch of magical realism that allows us to follow Cora as she is taken state to state. Forced sterilizations in South Carolinas, the fugitive slave act and its consequences, those hired to being back runaway slaves and what happens to, those who aid these slaves, not a pretty picture. We do meet many good people though, people that at great risk to themselves aided those they could.

Tough read, worthy read. Imaginative and inventive. Another new author for me, but I will be looking into his other books.

ARC from publisher. (less)

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Ron Charles

Feb 04, 2016Ron Charles rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-favorites, historical-fiction

Nobody could wait for Colson Whitehead’s new book — including Oprah, so here it is, a month early. In a surprise announcement Tuesday morning, Winfrey chose “The Underground Railroad” as the next title for Oprah’s Book Club. Originally set to release on Sept. 13, the novel is available now, the result of an extraordinary plan to start shipping 200,000 copies out to booksellers in secret.

Far and away the most anticipated literary novel of the year, “The Underground Railroad” marks a new triumph for Whitehead. Since his first novel, “The Intuitionist” (1999), the MacArthur “genius” has nimbly explored America’s racial consciousness — and more — with an exhilarating blend of comedy, history, horror and speculative fiction. In this new book, though, those elements are choreographed as never before. The soaring arias of cleverness he’s known for have been modulated in these pages. The result is a book that resonates with deep emotional timbre. “The Underground Railroad” reanimates the slave narrative, disrupts our settled sense of the past and stretches. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert... (less)

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Book Riot Community

Apr 26, 2016Book Riot Community added it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: swords-and-spaceships-recs

I put off reading this book, because even though I was intrigued by the whole “literal underground railroad” concept, I am also not typically a historical fiction reader. When it won the National Book Award I picked it up, and slowly read it throughout the winter in bits and pieces. Many scenes were harrowing and it was difficult to read at times. I had to walk away from it often. I read it again this month in preparation for a book discussion with the author we hosted at my library. The second time around, I could focus on the writing, the structure, and the way each scene was constructed, because I already knew the heartbreaking and horrifying details of what the characters endured, and I loved the book so much more. I’m not generally one who re-reads books, and this reading experience has me re-thinking that policy.

— Molly Wetta

from The Best Books We Read In April 2017: https://bookriot.com/2017/05/01/riot-...

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I went into this book with expectations sky high (Oprah AND Obama picked it as a must-read) and I’m happy to report that Underground Railroad more than lived up to the hype. It’s a searing account of American racism and African American agency set against the backdrop of pre-Civil War America. I tend to be very picky about my historical fiction and, under normal circumstances, I’d be grumpy about a book that takes events from several different eras and has them happen simultaneously or suggested that the Underground Railroad was literally a railroad. In Underground Railroad it all works beautifully. I never once felt grumpy that Whitehead condensed events or shifted some details in service of a larger truth. This book gave me ample fodder for thought, conversation, and writing.

— Ashley Bowen-Murphy

from The Best Books We Read In September 2016: http://bookriot.com/2016/10/03/riot-r...

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I’m sure there’s not much else I can say about this book that hasn’t already been said. Oprah used one of her many superpowers to have it published a month and a half early. It has to be a special kind of book that will inspire that kind of action. And The Underground Railroad didn’t disappoint. I’ve read many slave narratives, but Whitehead’s writing and characters left me destroyed after I closed the book.

–Elizabeth Allen

from The Best Books We Read In August 2016: http://bookriot.com/2016/08/31/riot-r...

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I have had three weeks to sit with this book since I finished it, and I am still not done processing it. I don’t know that I will ever be done, or that I want to be. Whitehead’s tale of Cora, an escaped slave fleeing numerous dangers, is harrowing and heart-wrenching, and the writing is so exquisite that I felt the story sharply. I cried three times by page seven, and countless times after, repeatedly moved by Cora’s struggle to find a moment’s peace in a horrific world that does not believe her worthy of it. That is the magic of this book. Whitehead tells Cora’s story so simply, so matter-of-fact, it makes the horrors all the more real. To us, it is a horrifying look at a shameful, inexcusable part of history; to Cora, it is just life as she knows it. My heart felt like it had been sledgehammered by the end. I cannot stop thinking about this book, and will not be surprised in the least if it wins all the awards. Whitehead is a remarkable, multifaceted writer, and this is his best yet.

— Liberty Hardy

from The Best Books We Read In March: http://bookriot.com/2016/04/04/riot-r...

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Colson Whitehead is one of my favorite authors and I am here for anything he writes, especially because every book is such a different experience than anything he’s written before. This story of a runaway slave named Cora has prose that is both rich and fluid, where you know it’s beautifully written but you have trouble slowing down to appreciate it because you’re moving along so quickly through the story. It has the weight and depth of an allegory, as well as the detail and insight of a character-driven novel. The cherry on top of this impressive accomplishment is a burst of magical realism that is yet another reason this book is unlike any other you’ve read. This will be one of the big fall releases, but it’ll also be one of the big books of the year. Get ready to see it on a lot of “Best of 2016” lists, including mine.

– Jessica Woodbury

from The Best Books We Read In April: http://bookriot.com/2016/04/29/riot-r... (less)

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Paromjit

Jun 04, 2017Paromjit rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, netgalley

The foundations of the United States are built on slavery and this dark history informs its evolution right up to present day where the current political environment has legitimised racism. This book is set in the early 19th century and Whitehead has made the actual allegorical historical railroad into a physical one that Cora travels on, giving her and us insights into the nature of slavery and racism, seeing the differences in how it is implemented in the states it passes through and just how ...more

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lark benobi

Aug 24, 2016lark benobi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: male-identified-authors, 2016

I finished feeling utterly exhilarated. This novel is a triumphant act of imagination.

I could write that there are many things I didn't like about it, too. I could list them, even. There were too many characters too superficially drawn; sometimes I felt there was too much narrative summary; the bad guys trended toward evil caricatures rather than multidimensional people; there was an odd distancing effect between the reader and any one character because there is so little offered of each charac ...more

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jessica

Mar 14, 2019jessica rated it liked it  ·  review of another edition

i am so thankful that historical fiction is such an accessible genre. i dont think i would have learned half the stuff i know today without it. i love that it allows readers to experience history in a completely new light, while still being exposed to its significance.

that being said, sometimes the execution of a story just doesnt do a particular moment in history justice. which is what i found to be the case with this book.

this honestly had so much potential to be a five star read for me. i thi ...more

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Brina

Dec 06, 2016Brina added it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: southern, african-american, historical-fiction, pulitzer-winner, magical-realism

DNF-- the characters did not resonate with me. If I were to compare Underground Railroad to Homegoing, I thought the latter to be the better book this year. Underground Railroad was tough to get into and perhaps if more action had occurred in the first part of the book, I would have liked it more.

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Jenny (Reading Envy)

Sep 11, 2017Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Shelves: tournament-of-books, arthur-c-clarke-award-nominee, reread, booker-winners-and-listed, national-book-award-nominees, read2020, pulitzer, read2017, ebooks

2 notes & 7 highlights

Well, I finally read it. I don't think I waited long enough because I felt like I'd read it already through all the award discussions and Oprah press and review traffic. When it was also included on the Man Booker Prize Long List and I had literally tried all of the 12 other titles, I decided to finally read it.

I had picked up on the idea that it was still the south but an actual railroad. What I wasn't really expecting was that it would be a litany of all the horrors enacted on black people in America, but just told in a more creative setting. I'm not sure what I think of this concept and at what point suffering becomes gratuitous. I keep thinking of the book that got less attention, Underground Airlines, where the author Ben H. Winters is simply more successful in asking the question, "What If?"

One common theme was that of enslavement and the many ways it can repeat, perpetuate, permeate. Early on there is this passage:

The music stopped. The circle broke. Sometimes a slave will be lost in a brief eddy of liberation. In the sway of a sudden reverie among the furrows or while untangling the mysteries of an early-morning dream. In the middle of a song on a warm Sunday night. Then it comes, always—the overseer’s cry, the call to work, the shadow of the master, the reminder that she is only a human being for a tiny moment across the eternity of her servitude.

And passages like that come up throughout the book. In many ways I felt like the same core ideas were repeating and while I agree history is like that, it made the book feel longer than it needed to, and I was ready to be done with it.

ETA: Reread in 2020 during the Tournament of Books "Super Rooster," because I was a guest commentator for the judgment between this book and Normal People in the quarterfinal rounds. I would say 4 stars is spot on, although I remembered feeling 3 stars about it. (less)

flag112 likes · Like  · 7 comments · see review

emma

Aug 02, 2021emma rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: diverse, 4-stars, non-ya, authors-of-color, literary-fiction, recommend, owned, historical, reviewed

I can't believe it's only been a month since I read this book.

Not only because a one-month review time turnaround is actually very good for me, but because it feels like this book changes your way of thinking.

Or maybe not quite - maybe like it opens your eyes to different perceptions, that it reframes and reworks in a logic so obvious afterward it casts its light on everything, not just the time since you finished.

We all talk a lot about the pitfalls of American education - Abraham Lincoln being an awesome guy who was so antiracist that he dedicated his life to breaking apart the systems that held bigotry up (instead of a guy who was also racist and just kind of politically ended up having to half-heartedly and -assedly do so); Christopher Columbus the adventurer and explorer (who was not an idiot who was bad at his job but very good at raping and pillaging); most pertinently here, the glossing over of slavery.

This book reframes the metaphorical into the literal, taking the underground railroad we know (because the American education system does give Harriet Tubman her due) and transmogrifying it into the subway we know better. And in the same way, it turns so much of what we've learned or thought we did on its head. From the 19th century to the current, just like the railroad.

It's just f*cking brilliant. It's so good that I know I'm the millionth person to say so, and yet look how long-winded I still was.

Bottom line: Just as fantastic as everyone said. Maybe better.

-----------------

pre-review

it's nothing that barack obama and oprah and the pulitzer committee haven't said before, but...

this book is very good.

review to come / 4 stars

-----------------

tbr review

author so nice he won the Pulitzer twice (less)

flag110 likes · Like  · 10 comments · see review

===

The Underground Railroad (miniseries)

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The Underground Railroad
Genre	Historical fiction
Created by	Barry Jenkins
Based on	The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Directed by	Barry Jenkins
Starring	Thuso Mbedu Chase W. Dillon Joel Edgerton Fred Hechinger Peter Mullan Mychal-Bella Bowman Sheila Atim
Composer	Nicholas Britell
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of episodes	10
Production
Executive producers	Barry Jenkins Adele Romanski Brad Pitt Dede Gardner Jeremy Kleiner
Cinematography	James Laxton[1]
Running time	20–77 minutes
Production companies	Plan B Entertainment Pastel Productions Big Indie Pictures Amazon Studios
Release
Original network	Amazon Prime Video
Original release	May 14, 2021
External links
Website

The Underground Railroad is an American fantasy historical drama streaming television limited series created and directed by Barry Jenkins based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Colson Whitehead. The series premiered on Amazon Prime Video on May 14, 2021. The series won the Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film with additional nominations for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series and Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie at the Primetime Emmy Awards.

Contents

• 1Premise
• 2Cast
  • 2.1Main
  • 2.2Recurring
• 3Episodes
• 4Production
  • 4.1Development
  • 4.2Casting
  • 4.3Filming
• 5Release
• 6Reception
  • 6.1Critical response
  • 6.2Accolades
• 7See also
• 8References
• 9Notes
• 10External links

Premise[edit]

A fictional story of people attempting an escape from slavery in the southern United States in the 1800s utilising a key plot element that employs the literary style of magic realism.^[2] In reality, "The Underground Railroad" was a network of abolitionists, hidden routes, and safe houses that helped enslaved African-Americans escape to freedom in the early to mid-1800s. In the novel and the series, it is an actual railroad complete with engineers, conductors, tracks, and tunnels. Cora, an enslaved woman from Georgia, joins newcomer Caesar to ride the subterranean train to freedom.^[3]

Cast[edit]

Main[edit]

• Thuso Mbedu as Cora Randall
• Chase W. Dillon as Homer, Ridgeway's assistant
• Joel Edgerton as Arnold Ridgeway, a slave catcher
• Fred Hechinger as Young Arnold Ridgeway^[a]
• Peter Mullan as Ridgeway Senior, father of Arnold Ridgeway^[a]
• Mychal-Bella Bowman as Fanny Briggs/Grace^[b]
• Sheila Atim as Mabel^[c]

Recurring[edit]

• Aaron Pierre as Caesar Garner
• William Jackson Harper as Royal
• Lily Rabe as Ethel Wells
• Chukwudi Iwuji as Mingo
• Calvin Leon Smith as Jasper
• Damon Herriman as Martin Wells
• Amber Gray as Gloria Valentine
• Benjamin Walker as Terrance Randall
• Justice Leak as James Randall
• Lucius Baston as Prideful
• Owen Harn as Chandler
• Bri Collins as Olivia
• Ryan James as Red
• Will Poulter as Sam
• Peter de Jersey as John Valentine
• IronE Singleton as Mack
• Marcus "MJ" Gladney Jr. as Ellis
• Cullen Moss as Judge Smith
• Jim Klock as Tom Hardman

Episodes[edit]

No.	Title	Directed by [3]	Teleplay by [4]	Original release date [5]
1	"Chapter 1: Georgia"	Barry Jenkins	Barry Jenkins	May 14, 2021
After a captured runaway slave is publicly burned to death by his master Terrance Randall, two young plantation slaves Cora Randall and Caesar Garner flee from slaveholding Georgia into freedom. The couple sets its hopes on the mysterious Underground Railroad. That organization consists of an unknown number of steam trains and a vast system of tunnels to transport runaways unseen to the non-slaveholding states of the US and finally to Canada. On their run, Cora strikes a young man in the head, who was with a group of slave catchers. From then on she is not only a wanted runaway but a fugitive from justice for murder. Hence, Cora and Caesar are stubbornly pursued by slave catcher Arnold Ridgeway and his underage but early-grown-up aide, a black boy named Homer. Ridgeway boasts that no runaway has ever escaped him with the exception of Cora's mother Mabel, who had disappeared without a trace some ten years earlier.
2	"Chapter 2: South Carolina"	Barry Jenkins	Jacqueline Hoyt and Nathan C. Parker	May 14, 2021
Taken by an underground train to Griffin, a (fictional) city in South Carolina, Cora and Caesar are treated well in the beginning. Cora receives school lessons in reading and in etiquette while Caesar is offered a job as an assistant to a white scholar. But after a while they discover the reality behind the friendly behavior. For some inexplicable reason, the town’s citizens benefact the negroes only in order to engage in controlling the black community through coerced sterilization and forced drug use. Ridgeway eventually finds out about Griffin, and he and Homer go there searching for Cora and Caesar. Cora is discovered by Homer, but she gets away and escapes to the Underground Railroad. Meanwhile, Caesar is cornered by Ridgeway.
3	"Chapter 3: North Carolina"	Barry Jenkins	Allison Davis	May 14, 2021
Cora's next destination is an unnamed village in the midst of the woods. The town’s people have formed a human potential cult that eagerly eliminates any sort of ethnic or intellectual variance. Thus any written material or image viewed as iniquitous is burnt, every black person is killed regardless of whether they are slave, runaway or freedman, and any person of Irish descent is seen as inferior. Cora hides in the attic of Martin Wells, the local Underground Railroad station agent, sharing the room with underage Grace, another black runaway. When Ridgeway finds out, he saves Cora from lynching by arresting her, and his associate murders Martin for protecting the railroad from Ridgeway. A furious mob drags Martin's wife Ethel away to unjustly execute her by hanging or immolation. The Wells' house is set on fire. The fate of Grace remains unknown.
4	"Chapter 4: The Great Spirit"	Barry Jenkins	Adrienne Rush	May 14, 2021
This episode reports on the youth of Arnold Ridgeway. Born in Tennessee, his father runs a farm and a forge. A forceful man of integrity, Ridgeway Sr., a pantheist, is guided by his belief in a "Great Spirit." Ridgeway Sr. employs only paid freedmen and detests slavery. Arnold is an unconfident young man who shows no talent for his father's work as a blacksmith. Arnold is driven by his envy of his father's self-confident black workers. Thus, he persuades Mack, the black son of one of the freedmen employed by his father to jump into a dead well, which causes a permanent limp. For the first time, Arnold makes his own money by supporting a group of slave catchers hunting down a runaway black man. Arnold later disappoints his father by expressing his personal view that slaves who have freed themselves are people of worth while those who remain slaves are empty of any humanity. Unable to reconcile with his father, Arnold leaves home.
5	"Chapter 5: Tennessee – Exodus"	Barry Jenkins	Nathan C. Parker	May 14, 2021
On their way back to Georgia, Arnold Ridgeway, Homer, Boseman (a slave catcher), Cora and her fellow sufferer Jasper cross former Cherokee land. The natives have already been forcibly removed on the Trail of Tears, and the surrounding lands and woods the group now travels through are a burnt-out wasteland useless to all. Ridgeway tells Cora that Lovey, a girl she escaped with, was hung from a gallows and did not die for two days. Cora later attempts to escape after Boseman loosened her chains in order to rape her but she is caught. That night, Ridgeway murders Boseman for the latter’s complaining, his treatment of Cora, and for reminding Ridgeway of his estranged relationship with his father. At a favorable moment Ridgeway reveals how he met Homer: he purchased him when Homer was a little child but set him free the very next day. Since then Homer has not left Ridgeway’s side. Cora attempts to escape again while Ridgeway is shooting at some game. Jasper sets himself free by dying in the wagon as the final result of his starving himself to death. Cora almost drowns herself in a river during an escape attempt but is rescued and recaptured by Ridgeway.
6	"Chapter 6: Tennessee – Proverbs"	Barry Jenkins	Nathan C. Parker and Barry Jenkins	May 14, 2021
Arnold Ridgeway takes Cora to his father's home so he can pay his last respects to the dying old man. Nevertheless there is no reconciliation between father and son. A drunken Ridgeway tells Cora that Caesar was ripped apart by an outraged crowd after the white town folks learned he and Cora allegedly killed a white youth during their flight ("Chapter 1: Georgia"). When Ridgeway falls asleep, three armed freedmen under their leader Royal free Cora and take her to the next Underground Railroad station. Ridgeway is left behind, chained to his bed frame and guarded by a grown-up limping Mack ("Chapter 4: The Great Spirit"). Homer sneaks in, killing Mack, and frees his father substitute.
7	"Chapter 7: Fanny Briggs"	Barry Jenkins	Jihan Crowther	May 14, 2021
This short episode switches back to the events in North Carolina ("Chapter 3: North Carolina"). The burning Wells house sets the neighborhood on fire and the resulting turmoil facilitates Grace's escape through the back door. Ethel Wells is hung on a tree by her wrists, left to die slowly and painfully. Grace makes it to the half-destroyed Underground Railroad station. Climbing over a boulder heap, the young girl spots a waiting train. Though Grace was the name given to her by Mr. Wells, she reveals her true identity to the female train manager. She is Fanny Briggs.
8	"Chapter 8: Indiana Autumn"	Barry Jenkins	Jacqueline Hoyt	May 14, 2021
Cora follows Royal to the Valentine Farm, an independent black community and winery in Indiana, which prospers under the guidance of the Afro-American founding couple, Gloria and John Valentine. As free people of color, the settlers are even allowed to bear firearms. Royal explains to Cora that she is now safe since slave catchers are not allowed to set foot on any person’s property without a warrant from the local judge, whom the community bribes in order to be warned before that document is issued so the hunted person or persons can escape. However, since Cora is not only a simple runaway but a fugitive murderer, her status is precarious. Influential black community member Mingo wants her expelled. Royal spends time with Cora hoping to help her let go of her past and see that she is part of something greater. Cora rejects his efforts and later finds he has left on a mission for the community with two other men.
9	"Chapter 9: Indiana Winter"	Barry Jenkins	Barry Jenkins	May 14, 2021
Royal returns with a group of men and women, and Cora opens up about her feelings about his leaving. She decides to tell her story to the community, including her attack of a young man during her flight. Mingo, a community member and a self-freed former slave, interrupts her tale to express his concerns about having her stay since Cora poses a danger to them as a wanted criminal. Ridgeway, after burning Mack's body, goes on to hunt Cora and appears in the local town. He demands a warrant from Judge Smith to search the village for Cora but the judge refuses Ridgeway until the latter can produce a deed proving Cora is runaway property. Royal and Cora spend personal time together. In town, businessman Tom Hardman, Judge Smith, Mingo, and another businessman play cards while discussing a deal for a percentage of the community’s fine wine. Cora tells Royal of her concern that the community will force her to leave. Ridgeway is frustrated having to wait for the deed and stops Judge Smith and Hardman on the street to make another demand to search the community. The judge rejects it. Hardman later visits Ridgeway offering his assistance. On the day when it will be decided if Cora can stay or not, the townsmen Mingo invited arrive during the debate and Ridgeway, with Homer, illegally enters the village along with a group of gunmen. Homer mystically knows exactly which cabin is Cora's. Hardman's men then proceed to massacre most of the people living on the winery. In the end, Royal is killed and a grief-stricken Cora is caught again by Ridgeway. Ridgeway forces Cora to take him to an Underground Railroad station, but as they climb down the entrance's rope ladder she pulls Ridgeway off and they fall to the ground. Cora shoots a seriously injured Ridgeway, and Homer grieves over his body. She and young Molly escape through the local Underground Railroad tunnel.
10	"Chapter 10: Mabel"	Barry Jenkins	Barry Jenkins and Jacqueline Hoyt	May 14, 2021
This episode discloses the mystery of the disappearance of Cora's mother, Mabel. When a mentally unstable fellow slave kills her own two foster children and then herself, Mabel flees into a swamp. She comes to her senses and realizes that little Cora has been left behind. Mabel intends to return, but is bitten by a snake and dies, without anyone seeing it. Some ten years later, Cora and Molly climb out of the Underground Railroad tunnel and a prairie schooner later approaches, driven by a stranger. They board, heading west for an unknown future.

Production[edit]

Development[edit]

On September 16, 2016, it was announced that Barry Jenkins was set to adapt Colson Whitehead's novel The Underground Railroad into a limited series. Jenkins was expected to produce the series alongside Adele Romanski. Production companies involved with the series were set to include Plan B Entertainment.^[6] On March 27, 2017, it was reported that Amazon Video had given the production a script-to-series commitment.^[7] On June 5, 2018, it was announced that Amazon given the production a formal greenlight and that Jenkins would direct all eleven episodes of the series.^[3] In June 2019, Nicholas Britell announced he would serve as composer on the series.^[8]

Casting[edit]

In April 2019, Thuso Mbedu, Chase W. Dillon, Aaron Pierre and Joel Edgerton joined the cast of the series.^[9][10] In August 2019, Damon Herriman and William Jackson Harper joined the cast of the series in recurring roles.^[11][12] In September 2019, Lucius Baston joined the cast of the series in a recurring role.^[13] In October 2019, Amber Gray joined the cast of the series in a recurring role.^[14] In November 2019, Jim Klock joined the cast of the series in a recurring role.^[15] In January 2020, Lily Rabe joined the cast of the series in a recurring role.^[16] In February 2020, Fred Hechinger and the rest of the cast was announced.^[17][18]

Filming[edit]

Filming began in August 2019 in Savannah, Georgia, and production lasted 116 days before concluding on September 22, 2020.^[19][20][21]

Release[edit]

The Underground Railroad was released on Amazon Prime Video on May 14, 2021.^[22]

Reception[edit]

Critical response[edit]

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 94% based on 90 critic reviews, with an average rating of 8.78/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "With a superb ensemble and Barry Jenkins' singular eye, The Underground Railroad delicately translates its source material into a powerfully humane series that is as challenging as it is necessary."^[23] Metacritic gave the series a weighted average score of 92 out of 100 based on 35 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".^[24]

Reviewing the series for Rolling Stone, Alan Sepinwall gave a rating of 4/5 and described the series as "an imperfect take on a painful, sprawling subject. But its emotional highs and lows are stronger than anything you are likely to find on TV this year, just as those images are more gorgeous and nightmarish."^[25] Stephen Robinson of The A.V. Club gave the series an A and said, "Jenkins has assembled an amazing cast, including William Jackson Harper as Cora's love interest, Royal, and Lily Rabe, who chills the screen as Ethel, the wife of a North Carolina abolitionist (Damon Herriman)."^[2]

Accolades[edit]

Year	Award	Category	Nominee(s)	Result	Ref.
2021	Black Reel Awards	Outstanding TV Movie or Limited Series	Barry Jenkins	Nominated	[26]
		Outstanding Directing, TV Movie/Limited Series		Nominated
		Outstanding Writing, TV Movie/Limited Series		Nominated
		Outstanding Actress, TV Movie/Limited Series	Thuso Mbedu	Nominated
		Outstanding Supporting Actor, TV Movie/Limited Series	William Jackson Harper	Nominated
	Gotham Awards	Breakthrough Series – Long Format	The Underground Railroad	Nominated	[27][28]
		Outstanding Performance in a New Series	Thuso Mbedu	Won
	Hollywood Critics Association TV Awards	Best Streaming Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Live-Action Television Movie	The Underground Railroad	Nominated	[29][30]
		Best Actor in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Television Movie	Joel Edgerton	Nominated
		Best Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Television Movie	Thuso Mbedu	Nominated
		Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Television Movie	William Jackson Harper	Nominated
	Primetime Emmy Awards	Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series	Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski, Mark Ceryak, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Colson Whitehead, Richard Heus, Jacqueline Hoyt and Richleigh Heagh	Nominated	[31]
		Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie	Barry Jenkins	Nominated
	Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards	Outstanding Casting for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie	Francine Maisler and Meagan Lewis	Nominated
		Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie	James Laxton (for "Chapter 9: Indiana Winter")	Nominated
		Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie, or Special (Original Dramatic Score)	Nicholas Britell (for "Chapter 2: South Carolina")	Nominated
		Outstanding Sound Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie, or Special	Onnalee Blank, Chris Kahwaty, Katy Wood, Bryan Parker, Jay Jennings, Harry Cohen, Luke Gibleon, Pietu Korhonen, John Finklea and Heikki Kossi (for "Chapter 9: Indiana Winter")	Nominated
		Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie	Onnalee Blank, Mathew Waters, Joe White and Kari Vähäkuopus (for "Chapter 1: Georgia")	Nominated
	Television Critics Association Awards	Program of the Year	The Underground Railroad	Nominated	[32]
		Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials		Nominated
		Individual Achievement in Drama	Thuso Mbedu	Nominated
2022	Critics' Choice Television Awards	Best Limited Series	The Underground Railroad	Pending	[33]
		Best Actress in a Movie/Miniseries	Thuso Mbedu	Pending
		Best Supporting Actor in a Movie/Miniseries	William Jackson Harper	Pending
	Golden Globe Awards	Best Miniseries or Television Film	The Underground Railroad	Won	[34]
	Independent Spirit Awards	Best New Scripted Series	The Underground Railroad	Pending	[35]
		Best Female Performance in a New Scripted Series	Thuso Mbedu	Pending
	Writers Guild of America Awards	Adapted Long Form	Jihan Crowther, Allison Davis, Jacqueline Hoyt, Barry Jenkins, Nathan C. Parker, Adrienne Rush	Pending	[36]

See also[edit]

• Underground (TV series)
• List of films featuring slavery

References[edit]

1. ^ "JAMES LAXTON BEGINS SHOOTING THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD". Lux Artists. June 4, 2019. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
2. ^ Jump up to:^a b Robinson, Stephen (May 5, 2021). "Barry Jenkins outdoes himself in the transcendent Underground Railroad". The A.V. Club. Retrieved May 13, 2021.
3. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Andreeva, Nellie (June 5, 2018). "Amazon Greenlights Barry Jenkins & Plan B's 'Underground Railroad' Limited Series With Jenkins Directing All 11 Episodes". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
4. ^ "The Underground Railroad". Writers Guild of America West. Retrieved April 9, 2021.
5. ^ "The Underground Railroad – Listings". The Futon Critic. Retrieved February 27, 2021.
6. ^ Andreeva, Nellie (September 17, 2016). "Plan B & Barry Jenkins To Adapt Hot Novel 'Underground Railroad' As Limited Series". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
7. ^ Andreeva, Nellie (March 27, 2017). "Amazon Lands Barry Jenkins & Plan B's 'Underground Railroad' Limited Series". Deadline. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
8. ^ Grobar, Matt (June 4, 2019). "'Succession' Composer Nicholas Britell Channels "Darkess And Absurdity" Of Power-Hungry Elite". Deadline. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
9. ^ Otterson, Joe (April 16, 2019). "Barry Jenkins' 'Underground Railroad' Series at Amazon Sets Three Main Cast Members". Variety. Retrieved April 16, 2019.
10. ^ Otterson, Joe (April 18, 2019). "Joel Edgerton Joins Barry Jenkins' 'Underground Railroad' Amazon Series (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
11. ^ Petski, Denise (August 16, 2019). "Damon Herriman Joins 'Underground Railroad'; 'Ballers' Casts Catherine Haena Kim". Deadline. Retrieved August 22, 2019.
12. ^ Petski, Denise (August 22, 2019). "'The Underground Railroad': William Jackson Harper To Recur On Amazon Series". Deadline. Retrieved August 22, 2019.
13. ^ Pellegreene, Lisa (November 28, 2019). "'Lucius Baston discusses multiple projects to include "Bigger", Lovecraft Country" and "The Underground Railroad"'". Patch. Retrieved November 28, 2019.
14. ^ Evans, Greg (October 24, 2019). "'The Underground Railroad': Broadway's Amber Gray Joins Amazon Limited Series". Deadline. Retrieved October 24, 2019.
15. ^ Petski, Denise (November 1, 2019). "'13 Reasons Why's Bryce Cass Joins Amazon's 'Panic'; Jim Klock In 'The Underground Railroad'". Deadline. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
16. ^ Petski, Denise (January 22, 2020). "'The Underground Railroad': Lily Rabe To Recur On Amazon Series". Deadline. Retrieved January 22, 2020.
17. ^ Petski, Denise (February 27, 2020). "'The Underground Railroad': Fred Hechinger Joins Amazon Drama Series". Deadline. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
18. ^ Sneider, Jeff (February 25, 2021). "Barry Jenkins' 'The Underground Railroad' Unveils First Trailer and Release Date". Collider. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
19. ^ "Now Playing: 'Underground Railroad' the latest Amazon Prime series shot in Savannah". WJCL. May 18, 2021. Retrieved August 10, 2021.
20. ^ Dennis, Zach (February 26, 2021). "Savannah-shot 'The Underground Railroad' set for Amazon Prime debut on May 14". Savannah Now. Retrieved August 10, 2021.
21. ^ Hersko, Tyler (September 22, 2020). "Barry Jenkins Wraps 116-Day Production on 'Underground Railroad'". IndieWire. Retrieved August 10, 2021.
22. ^ Haring, Bruce (February 25, 2021). "'The Underground Railroad' Amazon Prime Limited Series Sets Premiere Date". Deadline. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
23. ^ "The Underground Railroad: Limited Series". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved June 2, 2021.
24. ^ "The Underground Railroad: Season 1". Metacritic. Retrieved June 2, 2021.
25. ^ Sepinwall, Alan (May 10, 2021). "'The Underground Railroad': Barry Jenkins' Gorgeous Journey Into American Darkness". Rolling Stone. Retrieved May 13, 2021.
26. ^ "Black Reel Awards for Television 2021: Plenty of "Love" in the Heart of the Country!". The Black Reel Awards. June 17, 2021. Retrieved August 10, 2021.
27. ^ Lattanzio, Ryan (November 30, 2021). "Gotham Awards: 'The Lost Daughter' Wins Top Prize — See the Full List of Winners". IndieWire. Retrieved November 30, 2021.
28. ^ Sharf, Zack (October 21, 2021). "Gotham Awards 2021 Nominations: 'Pig,' 'Green Knight,' 'Passing' Compete for Best Feature". IndieWire. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
29. ^ Menzel, Scott (July 9, 2021). "Ted Lasso, The Handmaid's Tale, and Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist lead Inaugural HCA TV Awards Nominations". Hollywood Critics Association. Retrieved July 11, 2021.
30. ^ Schneider, Michael (August 29, 2021). "'Ted Lasso,' 'The Crown,' 'The Mandalorian,' 'Cruel Summer,' 'New Amsterdam' Among HCA TV Awards Winners". Variety. Retrieved August 30, 2021.
31. ^ Hipes, Patrick (July 13, 2021). "Emmy Nominations: 'The Crown', 'The Mandalorian' Top List; HBO/HBO Max Edges Netflix For Top Spot – Full List Of Nominees". Deadline. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
32. ^ Turchiano, Danielle (July 15, 2021). "'Ted Lasso' Scores the Most 2021 TCA Awards Nominations". Variety. Retrieved July 16, 2021.
33. ^ Pedersen, Eric (December 6, 2021). "Critics Choice TV Nominations: 'Succession' Leads Field As HBO Edges Netflix". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
34. ^ Swift, Andy (January 9, 2022). "Golden Globes 2022: Succession and Hacks Lead TV Winners, Pose's Michaela Jaé Rodriguez Makes History". TVLine. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
35. ^ Long, Brent; Tangcay, Jazz (December 14, 2021). "Indie Spirit Awards 2022: Full List of Nominations". Variety. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
36. ^ Schneider, Michael (January 13, 2022). "Writers Guild Unveils 2022 WGA TV Award Nominees: 'Yellowjackets,' 'Hacks,' 'Reservation Dogs,' 'Only Murders in the Building' and More". Variety. Retrieved January 13, 2022.

Notes[edit]

1. ^ Jump up to:^a b Only credited as starring in episode 4
2. ^ Only credited as starring in episode 7
3. ^ Only credited as starring in episode 10

External links[edit]

• Official website
• The Underground Railroad at IMDb
• The Underground Railroad at Rotten Tomatoes