The Underground Railroad (Oprah's Book Club)

A Novel

By: Colson Whitehead

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.

One of The New York Times’s 10 Best Books of the 21st Century • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century • A Los Angeles Times Best Fiction Book of the Last 30 Years

The basis for the acclaimed original Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins.

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him.

In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.

As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.

Critic reviews

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE, THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD, THE ALA ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL AND THE HURSTON/WRIGHT AWARD ** NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, WALL STREET JOURNAL, WASHINGTON POST, TIME, PEOPLE, NPR AND MORE ** #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Get it, then get another copy for someone you know because you are definitely going to want to talk about it once you read that heart-stopping last page.”
--Oprah Winfrey (Oprah's Book Club 2016 Selection)

“[A] potent, almost hallucinatory novel... It possesses the chilling matter-of-fact power of the slave narratives collected by the Federal Writers’ Project in the 1930s, with echoes of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and brush strokes borrowed from Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka and Jonathan Swift…He has told a story essential to our understanding of the American past and the American present.”
--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Think Toni Morrison (Beloved), Alex Haley (Roots); think 12 Years a Slave…An electrifying novel…a great adventure tale, teeming with memorable characters…Tense, graphic, uplifting and informed, this is a story to share and remember.”
--People, (Book of the Week)

"With this novel, Colson Whitehead proves that he belongs on any short list of America's greatest authors--his talent and range are beyond impressive and impossible to ignore. The Underground Railroad is an American masterpiece, as much a searing document of a cruel history as a uniquely brilliant work of fiction."
--Michael Schaub, NPR

“Far and away the most anticipated literary novel of the year, The Underground Railroad marks a new triumph for Whitehead…[A] book that resonates with deep emotional timbre. The Underground Railroad reanimates the slave narrative, disrupts our settled sense of the past and stretches the ligaments of history right into our own era...The canon of essential novels about America's peculiar institution just grew by one.”
--Ron Charles, Washington Post

Fantastic Novel

I loved this book. The moment I finished it, I wanted to begin it again. When do you let go of the past? What is the "American imperative?" Who defines America? How can we ever move past the slavery as a society, and if possible, should we? The descriptive prose and the employed rhetorical devices in this narrative made for a wonderful listen. I would recommend this to any one. Please be mindful that this novel reveals the horrific cruelty of slavery and some may find it deeply disturbing. I will be thinking about this narrative for many months to come. The novel is powerful and hauntingly beautiful.

WOW!

This is the fastest I’ve ever finished a book on Audible. It was gripping, painful, visceral and so beautifully thought out and put together.
It’s truly masterful to lay down lines between the atrocities of the past and how they inform the deformities of the present.
This land’s glory truly travels through the darkness of others.

Good but

This book actually had me believing that there were sections of the underground railroad that were actually an underground railroad. But this is not true, so I don’t believe we need this type of story when there are so many true stories. I also have a difficult time skipping back-and-forth in different time periods, and different peoples perspectives. I end up spending a certain amount of time either letting my mind wander because I lose interest, or just being confused as to where I am in the story. I enjoyed it, but I think there are so many better books out there that will give wonderful and more truthful perspectives.

Captivating Story

This was a beautiful and tragic story. I was hoping it would have a happy end but instead it just kind of left me hanging which was disappointing. But overall, this story very realistically depicted the life of a slave and what it was like trying to escape her chains. I am so grateful for the miracle of slavery being abolished in this country and that we can coexist much more peacefully in this country now. Very eye opening story.

Wow! Amazing book and preformance.

This book was a great read, I hated putting it down and every time I did all I could think about was picking back up right where I left off. Bahni Turpin does a great job narrating this book, all together outstanding!