Book Log 2017 #25: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm writing these recaps well after the fact (it's currently 2019 and I haven't even started on 2018 yet!), so it's hard for me to give more than vague impressions of each book. I do remember some details here - the Underground Railroad is an actual railroad built underground, which does take slaves northward, but based on a schedule (both in terms of time and destination) that's not exactly predictable.

Each stop made by the main character evokes some instance of racial injustice. A stop in South Carolina recalls the Tuskegee experiments. What appears to be the final stop in Indiana bears resemblance to the Rosewood massacre. All set to the backdrop of a relentless slave catcher, whose continued hunt adds a constant level of dread.

It's hard to say at this remove what I felt about the book when I read it, but I do think that it does an excellent job demonstrating not just the horrors of slavery, but how that horror continued to play out over time. It is very much worth reading.