10 books that helped Colson Whitehead write 'The Underground Railroad'
It's hard to list influential books of 2016 without mentioning The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.
The book paints a portrait of slavery and American history by following Cora, a slave running away from a cruel plantation in Georgia. As she struggles to escape to freedom, Cora travels through the country, seeing how deeply slavery as shaped American life and how passionately citizens will fight to keep or destroy the institution.
Since it debuted in August 2016, the novel has received rave reviews and praise, including a Kirkus Prize nomination and a National Book Award nomination.
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Yet, despite being such a unique and singular novel, there are a number of books that helped shape Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad.
"I wrote [The Underground Railroad] in 2015, had the idea originally in 2000, but took inspiration and ideas from things I encountered over 30 years," Whitehead told Mashable. "Here's a short list of books that gave me a helping hand, whether I read them as a teenager, or much more recently."
Check out the books that helped Whitehead and read why they were influential to him below.
1. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
"The life story as political tract, this autobiography was a prime text for the abolitionist movement. The arguments of my 'Indiana' chapter are drawn in part from Douglass, DuBois and Booker T. Washington."
2. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
"Jacobs’s seven years hiding in the attic inspired some of the episodes in the 'North Carolina' chapter. Her perspective on the distinct horrors of the female slave helped shape Cora’s reactions."
3. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and The Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist
"Cash Rules Everything Around Me: C.R.E.A.M! Baptist has a fleet, persuasive take on the materialist underpinnings of the 'peculiar institution.'"
4. Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America’s First Civil Rights Movement by Fergus M. Bordewich
"An eloquent and thorough history of the railroad. Gave me a solid foundation to depart from once I started making things up."
5. Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad by Eric Foner
"I had trouble getting a handle on Ridgeway, the slave catcher in the book, but Foner’s tales of the brinksmanship between abolitionists and slave masters in New York gave me an idea…"
6. Beloved by Toni Morrison
"I hadn’t read this in 30 years, and read 30 pages before I had to stop and say: 'Damn, you can’t do better than Morrison!' But whatever you write, whether it’s about slavery, or war, or marriage, someone more talented than you has done it better – all you can do is hope you have something new to add."
7. The Known World by Edward P. Jones
"As with Morrison, I thought I’d reread this novel before I started, but decided it would intimidate me. I’ll go back to it one day, and urge you to read it!"
8. Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment by James H. Jones
"South Carolina in my novel seems like a nice place…until it doesn’t. 'Bad Blood' gives the history behind the events that force Cora to see her new home in a different light."
9. The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
"I read Douglass, Jacobs and 'Bad Blood' in college, and this is another book that stayed with me from those days and inspired parts of the novel. A bleak, illuminating chronicle of racism in the name of 'science.'"
10. The Diary of a Resurrectionist 1811-1812 by James Blake Bailey
"Research about night riders and the Ku Klux Klan led to me to early 19th century stories about grave robbers. This journal is a wonderfully mundane description of the grave robbing trade."
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