THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD COLSON WHITEHEAD BOOK.

The Underground Railroad did exist, a network of secret routes and safehouses. But what if it was an actual railroad, dug deep into the southern soil, a subterranean way to freedom.

Cora, a plantation slave in Georgia, is a passenger but her journey is fierce.

Granddaughter to an African captive, daughter to a runaway, Cora is born to brutality and misery. When new boy Caesar speaks of freedom, it takes one last beating for her to run, where the railroad steams to South Carolina, skyscrapers and racial harmony.

But in Ridgeway, with a slavecatcher haunted by his failure to catch Cora's runaway mother, the dark past is never far away, and Cora must run north, where trees drip with lynchings.

The Underground Railroad is full of heroic deeds and evil. Sheer horrors play out on front lawns, yet Cora's narrative is as graphically matter-of-fact as these acts were.

Bound for bestseller lists, this is visceral, gripping and makes you rage. A book that should be read by everyone.

IAIN MACLEOD WATERSTONES SAUCHIEHALL ST, GLASGOW IN ASSOCIATION WITH