Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad is sitting atop the NYT bestsellers chart and is an Oprah pick. It is an amazing novel about race, injustice and the American way. The story of a slave named Cora’s quest for freedom from slavery is also the story of America’s racism throughout history. Whitehead imagines a mid-nineteenth century America where the Underground Railroad was an actual physical railroad existing beneath the earth. As Cora’s first station master says, If you want to see what this nation is all […]
John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead
This book caught my eye due to its title: John Henry Days. My sons’ names are John and Henry. So I picked it up at Half Price Books, skimmed the excellent reviews on the back and tossed it into my cart. Shouldn’t have. While there were a few interesting parts, overall it was a difficult book to read, one that I completed in about twice the amount of time that it should have taken, simply because I didn’t feel like picking it up. The writing […]