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sethdmichaels.bsky.social · @sethdmichaels.bsky.social@bridge.neodb.net

Rated The Underground Railroad 10/10

"Was she out of bondage or in its web: how to describe the status of a runaway?"<br/><br/>A terrific story of a woman born into slavery whose escape is long, fraught, and uncertain - mixed with brief interludes into moments in the lives of side characters. There's a steampunk-magic realist conceit to the book, in which the titular railroad is quite literally trains and tracks in tunnels - but it's less prominent as a plot point than I was expecting, and the centerpiece of the book is the depiction of slavery and racial violence, which is convincingly, viscerally real. Cora, the protagonist, is smart, resourceful, and determined, but Whitehead takes great pains to make it clear that survival is contingent and unlikely, and leaves out the kinds of melodramatic coincidences that make for tidy endings. Really impressive.

#book

Published 2026-08-18 14:46 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere