Cora's quest for freedom is a personal story of slavery that allows us to see beyond the institution to the lived experiences of enslaved individuals.
Always a realist, I had to consciously call upon suspended disbelief to allow for the existence of a literal underground railroad. Never mind how they got steam engines into underground tunnels! Just accept it, and go with it.
The book as a whole was like a tableau of possibilities. Cora's journey through the states was a vehicle to showcase the range of different perspectives and experiences one might expect during this time in history. With each state, an alternate reality of a slice America was presented. While one place may have appeared more progressive, and another place may have seemed more pleasant and refined, the underlying racism was always exposed.
Likewise, the cast of characters we meet on Cora's journey put on display a wide range of people and attitudes. Among the white people, we see that racism can be blatant and savage; it can rage hidden under a thin veneer of respectability; it can even fuel a white savior complex, seemingly lifting up black people while actually keeping them down. The abolitionists who helped Cora were a ray of hope for America's future. Some of the free Blacks had been slaves, others had been born free in the north, and among them they had different ideas of how best to live safely in white America.
While Cora's story was compelling, with unexpected twists and turns, I think the real value was in the exploration of the various societies and psyches of all the places and people Cora saw and met along the way. It wasn't until after I finished the book that I realized the chapters were alternatingly named for people and places.
I really enjoyed the author's writing; I appreciated his choice of words and turns of phrases, and occasionally re-read sentences just to savor them. The non-linear and non-chronological storytelling sometimes broke the flow of the narrative, but together they painted that period tableau.
