"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead (2016)

This novel was highly recommended everywhere online (even by Annie Lennox herself) so it made me intrigued enough to check it out. It was not exactly easy read as it deals with the days of slavery in US and in the beginning I was constantly getting flashes of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Roots" as this type of narrative generally deals with poor, illiterate slaves and their cruel white masters - with thousand and one variation on this story - but what makes this particular novel different is the uniqueness of its author's talent: this is the very first time I had encounter Colson Whitehead and he does magic here, adding his own special touch that reminds me a little bit on Toni Morrison. You see, what is special here is that Whitehead adds his own ingredients, which are almost fairy tale and fantasy combined with hard, realistic facts. In this book, the underground railroad is not a network of secret routes and places where slaves escaped to freedom but a real, genuine underground railway with the tunnels where carriages transport slaves across the borders. It is a bit confusing at first and I wasn't sure how will I like this toying with the reality, but eventually it makes sense and it works just fine.

The main protagonist here is Cora, whose mother escaped to freedom and never went back - Cora eventually joins another slave in his escape from the plantation and the novel follows them as they are running from place to place, trying to avoid a slave catcher Ridgeway and his companions. Along the way Cora encounters all sorts of people - some helping, others not - and changes her identity once the slave catchers are on her trail. Interestingly, the novel also makes it clear that white people could have also been lynched if found that they hide runaway slaves. Because Cora is never fully explained and I find her more like an symbol than real character, her catcher is actually better represented and there is a very memorable character of a little black boy Homer who unexplainably stays close and faithful to him. Even though I had my doubts at the start, it turned out into a really good read. Quite excellent.