The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead

Barack Obama, Oprah, and the Pulitzer Prize panel have all declared the Underground Railroad a winner, and I found this novel about the reality of slavery both gripping and haunting.

The Underground Railroad was a network of sympathetic and brave people, willing to help runaway slaves escape to the safety of the north in pre-civil war America.  However the underground railroad is not just an historical metaphor here, but used literally, adding a clever and creative element of magical realism to the story.  Whitehead has said in an interview that he had the idea to make the railway real because American children learning history often mistakenly think the Underground Railroad was an actual railroad.

The main character is a young slave called Cora, who is an outcast even with other slaves working on a cotton plantation in Georgia.  Cora's mother had previously run away, causing Cora to be sent to a separate compound reserved for those with illness, disability, or no family.
Cora's emerging puberty and lack of family makes her vulnerable to being preyed upon by both fellow slaves and white men; so when Caesar, a young slave who has come from another plantation, tells her about the Underground Railroad, the two plan to escape.
The pair initially spend time in North Carolina. They are treated well and provided with jobs and hostel accommodation.  Eventually however, they are exposed to disturbing goings-on: black women are encouraged to be surgically sterilized and men are used as part of medical research studying untreated syphilis.
Along the way Cora also spends time working as a living exhibit in a museum, as a maid and hiding in an attic for weeks.  All the while she is pursued by Ridgeway, a notorious and relentless slave catcher.

The real Underground Railroad movement was not as organised as Whitehead's, but he extensively researched historical interviews and testimony, and all events are based on fact. Historic wanted notices for runaway slaves are used with chilling effect throughout the novel.
The content of this book means the depictions of violence and cruelty are powerful and shocking; but also described in a matter-of-fact way that is not gratuitous.
As a young man Whitehead experienced police harassment for no other reason than being a African American; in reading The Underground Railroad we can begin to understand the ongoing legacy of racial inequality.

Reviewed by Katrina

Catalogue link:  The Underground Railroad

My Name is Mahtob by Mahtob Mahmoody

Mahtob Mahmoody – does the name seem familiar? Perhaps ‘Betty Mahmoody’ rings more bells? How many of us hearing that name see actress Sally Field in our mind’s eye? Betty’s book Not Without My Daughter was published in 1987, just a year after she and her daughter, Mahtob, escaped from Iran, where Betty’s husband had held them against their will for two years. The movie based on the book came out just a few years later. In 1992, Betty wrote a follow-up book, For the Love of a Child, that described the events in their own lives as mother and daughter readjusted to life in Michigan, and also described Betty’s work as an advocate for parents in similar situations, and her push for changes in state and federal laws concerning international abductions.

But that’s enough about what went before. Now in her late thirties, Mahtob feels able to write her own story of her life before, during and after the events of 1984-86. She tells us that she has never read her mother’s books, nor seen the movie, on the advice of a wise older lady who worked for her mother’s German publisher. That way, her memories are her own, and are from her own perspective as a child, rather than being coloured by either her mother’s very different perspective as a wife and mother, or distorted by the images and dialogue of the movie.

Mahtob’s story is gripping. The years before and during the time in Iran are covered in the early chapters. She then tells the story of her childhood and adolescent years, coping with many moves and a lot of overseas travel with her mother along with the constant fear that her father would make good on his threats to abduct her and take her back to Iran. She describes how she moved from hatred of her father to forgiveness, knowing how important that was for her own mental and spiritual health, but how that forgiveness was tested when she learnt that a filmmaker was making a documentary with her father to counter the claims made against him in her mother’s book and in the movie.

Mahtob battles illness at the same time as struggling to avoid the documentary makers who want to bring father and daughter together for their production, and this while trying to cope with university study. It is a physically and emotionally draining period in her life.

I enjoyed reading Mahtob’s book. Sometimes it jumped around a bit from the present to the past, but not so much that you lost track. The ending, which is the text of an email she wrote to a friend, seemed a little flat and an odd way to end, but in no way spoilt the book as a whole. It was a good read, and a satisfying update to a fascinating story. 

Posted by Jessie Moir

Catalogue link: My Name is Mahtob