Reviews
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTELLER and NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST "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 Misrables , 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 "[T]hink Toni Morrison ( Beloved ), Alex Haley ( Roots ); think 12 Years a Slave ...[A]n 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, "Kept me up at night, had my heart in my throat, almost afraid to turn the next page. 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 "[T]hink Toni Morrison ( Beloved ), Alex Haley ( Roots ); think 12 Years a Slave ...[A]n 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, "Kept me up at night, had my heart in my throat, almost afraid to turn the next page. 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 "[T]hink Toni Morrison ( Beloved ), Alex Haley ( Roots ); think 12 Years a Slave ...[A]n 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) "The first thing to say about Colson Whitehead's new novel, The Underground Railroad , is that it's really good -- good, in fact, in just about every way a novel can be good...[A] fully realized masterpiece, a weird blend of history and fantasy that will have critics rightfully making comparisons to Toni Morrison and Gabriel García-Márquez... Lovely and rare, dark and imaginative, The Underground Railroad is Whitehead's best work and an important American novel." --The Boston Globe "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, 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
