The Underground Railroad bookUnderground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

The Pulitzer Prize winner for 2017 (among other awards), Whitehead drew me in and kept me believing in his alternative history novel. Using history, true and altered, and magical realism, he follows two slaves escaping in the 1800’s. I found that the gritty truth of the history of slavery mixed with the magical underground railroad ( a real underground train!) helped to balance my emotional response as a reader. The truth of history is too brutal for hope. Whitehead’s novel allows hope and magic.

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